tag

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) linked China’s booming exports and growing trade imbalances in part to a real depreciation of the yuan, a subtle shift in its stance that adds to rising global concerns over the currency’s weak exchange rate.In carefully worded remarks following the conclusion of the IMF’s annual review of China’s economy, fund officials said the country’s low inflation relative to price levels among its trading partners has led to a weaker yuan in real terms. They urged Chinese policymakers to adopt bolder stimulus to boost consumption, which would lift consumer prices, while allowing more exchange rate flexibility.“As the second-largest economy in the world, China is simply too big to generate much growth from exports,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said at a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. “Continuing to depend on export-led growth risks furthering global trade tensions.”The IMF didn’t explicitly recommend that China should push for the yuan’s appreciation, she said.China has moved fast in recent years to gain manufacturing dominance, drawing accusations from the likes of Donald Trump over maintaining an undervalued exchange rate that gave its exporters an edge over their competitors and helped it amass trade surpluses.While the IMF has been largely silent on the fair value of China’s currency in recent years, its latest remarks appeared to be siding with critics in echoing growing calls abroad and within China for a stronger yuan. The currency’s inflation-adjusted exchange rate fell to the lowest in more than a decade due to persistent falling prices in China, which made its exports more competitively globally.The debate is playing out against the backdrop of China’s goods trade surplus surging to a record of above $1tn in the first 11 months of this year. Countries fearful for the future of their industries are increasingly pushing back against the flood of Chinese exports.China maintains a “managed float” of the yuan and has a number of tools to influence the exchange rate. Officials have repeatedly said they aim to keep the currency “basically stable,” allowing the yuan to appreciate slightly this year and at times using its daily fixing to discourage rapid moves.Even as the yuan heads for its first annual gain since 2021 in both onshore and offshore markets, Goldman Sachs Group Inc estimates the yuan is 25% undervalued and will appreciate more than forwards contracts are pricing for 2026.The IMF has in recent years been advising China to increase the flexibility of its exchange rate. A decade ago, the IMF dropped a long-held view that the yuan was undervalued, ahead of the currency’s inclusion in the fund’s Special Drawing Rights basket of reserve currencies.“What we want to see is a market-based exchange rate that reflects fundamentals,” Georgieva said.External imbalances are becoming more pronounced for China, according to the IMF, with its current account surplus projected to reach 3.3% of gross domestic product in 2025.Earlier in 2025, an annual technical analysis by the IMF found that the yuan’s real effective exchange rate was 8.5% weaker than its estimated equilibrium level, based on a current account surplus of 2.3% of GDP last year. The surplus reached 3.4% in the third quarter of this year, the highest since late 2010, according to Bloomberg calculations. 

Two giant pandas were flying home from France to China for retirement Tuesday, after the female was diagnosed with kidney failure, with a Chinese official pledging new bears would soon replace them.Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi arrived at the Beauval Zoo in central France in 2012 as part of China's "panda diplomacy" programme, which sees the black-and-white bears dispatched across the globe as soft-power ambassadors.The two pandas, both 17, were meant to stay in France until January 2027, but they left in a plane Tuesday to live out their retirement at China's Chengdu panda sanctuary.The pair were loaded onto a plane at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport, each in their own box dotted with ventilation holes, with the words "Bon voyage" inscribed on the side.Before they departed, a Chinese embassy official promised new bears would soon be dispatched to make up for the popular pair leaving."Rest assured, French friends, new giant pandas will arrive in the future," said Chinese embassy official Chen Dong.More than 200 well-wishers had braved the cold and rain on Sunday to say farewell, including one couple dressed head-to-toe in panda-themed gear, who say they have visited the bears "more than a thousand times" since their arrival in 2012.Patrice Colombel, an electronics technician, and his wife Veronique, an administrative assistant at a secondary school, told AFP they would not have missed the chance to see them off."They are the first pandas we have ever known. We wanted to be there to say goodbye to them," the couple visiting from the southwest city of Bordeaux told AFP.The pair produced three cubs while in France — the first pandas to do so in the country — and became star attractions at the Beauval zoo in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, which welcomed some two million visitors in 2023.The decision to send them back to China came after Huan Huan was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease — a common condition in bears around her age, according to zoo director Rodolphe Delord.The move came with "a twinge of sadness", Delord said.But the twins born in 2021 are expected to remain at Beauval for now, said Delord, adding he hopes to extend the zoo's partnership with China beyond 2027.The eldest of the offspring, Yuan Meng, left France for China in 2023.Panda keeper Delphine Pouvreau said their departure would be "very hard" for the caretakers, who have forged a strong bond with the bears."We experienced the first birth of a baby panda in France here," she said, adding the memory would remain "engraved in our hearts".The giant panda was downgraded last year from "endangered" to "vulnerable" on the global list of at-risk species.Only about 20 zoos outside China have pandas, which have become a symbol of Beijing's diplomatic friendships.China has been using so-called "panda diplomacy", in which the bears are sent across the globe as soft-power ambassadors, for decades.In 1972, it gifted a pair of pandas to Washington, following US president Richard Nixon's historic visit to the Communist nation.

China's yuan-denominated loans rose 14.75 trillion yuan (about $2.08 trillion) in the first nine months of the year, central bank data showed on Wednesday. Of the total, household loans grew by 1.1 trillion yuan, and loans to enterprises and public institutions increased by 13.44 trillion yuan, according to the People's Bank of China. Outstanding yuan loans stood at 270.39 trillion yuan at the end of September, up 6.6 percent year-on-year, according to the central bank. The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.4 percent year-on-year to 335.38 trillion yuan at the end of September. The M1, which covers cash in circulation, demand deposits and client reserves of non-bank payment institutions, stood at 113.15 trillion yuan at the end of last month, up 7.2 percent year-on-year. The M0, which indicates the amount of cash in circulation, increased 11.5 percent year-on-year to 13.58 trillion yuan at the end of September. According to preliminary statistics, the aggregate financing to the real economy was 30.09 trillion yuan in the first nine months, which was 4.42 trillion yuan more than the same period last year. The outstanding aggregate financing to the real economy stood at 437.08 trillion yuan at the end of September, registering 8.7 percent year-on-year growth.

China's total goods imports and exports in yuan-denominated terms rose to 33.61 trillion yuan (about $4.73 trillion) in the first nine months of 2025, up 4% year-on-year, official data showed Monday. The growth rate accelerated from an increase of 3.5% registered in the first eight months of the year, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC). Goods exports led the overall expansion during the January-September period, surging 7.1% year-on-year to 19.95 trillion yuan, while imports stood at 13.66 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.2%, Xinhua News Agency reported. In September alone, China's goods imports and exports increased by 8% year-on-year to 4.04 trillion yuan — marking the highest monthly increase so far this year. In the first nine months of 2025, China's goods trade with Belt and Road partner countries totaled 17.37 trillion yuan — 6.2% higher than a year earlier, GAC data revealed. Trade with ASEAN, Latin America, Africa and Central Asia grew by 9.6%, 3.9%, 19.5% and 16.7% year-on-year, respectively, while that with other economies in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation increased by 2%.

China's fiscal revenue edged up 0.3 percent year on year to 14.82 trillion yuan (about 2.09 trillion US dollars) in the first eight months of this year, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.The central government collected about 6.43 trillion yuan in fiscal revenue during the period, down 1.7 percent year on year, while local governments collected 8.39 trillion yuan, up 1.8 percent year on year, according to (Xinhua) news agency.In the first eight months, the country's tax revenue totaled 12.11 trillion yuan, edging up 0.02 percent year on year, while non-tax revenue increased 1.5 percent to 2.71 trillion yuan.China's fiscal expenditure expanded 3.1 percent year on year to 17.93 trillion yuan in the first eight months. The central government's fiscal expenditure rose 8 percent year on year, and there was a 2.3 percent increase in local government expenditure during the same period.Spending on education came in at approximately 2.71 trillion yuan, up 5.6 percent year on year. Science and technology expenditure reached 587.4 billion yuan, marking a 3.1 percent year-on-year increase.Spending on social security and employment stood at 3.07 trillion yuan, up 10 percent year on year.