Tom Schumacher submits:The People's Bank fo China continues to amass huge levels of foreign currency reserves with little attention paid. Those reserves totaled $2.4 trillion as of December 2009, which is larger than the GDP of Italy, the world's 7th largest economy. China's reserves are growing at about $400 billion per year, roughly adding Norway's economy to their reserve surplus every year.
These reserves are generated from structural imbalances in the world economy, with China running huge trade surpluses which are exacerbated by China's currency peg. To keep the currency within a narrow range, China is forced to buy foreign currency that comes into the country. The Yuan it spends to buy foreign cash is added to the funds sloshing around China's banking system. In addition, the foreign currency that the Bank of China holds is then reinvested, mostly in low yielding investments like US Treasury Bonds. In fact, China is the largest holder of US Treasuries. The Yuan flowing around the banking system is causing some to wonder about inflation and asset bubbles. Some market participants are taking notice of bank loan growth and Urban real estate markets. Chinese officials have taken steps recently to slow loan growth and to potentially slow inflationary pressures. We've seen the market respond with the Hang Seng Index falling over 11% over the last month.
Source: Bloomberg
China's huge arsenal of reserves is increasingly troublesome. William Pesek of Bloomberg has called it a "massive and growing pyramid scheme." China is essentially trapped in its current arrangement; as it buys more US Treasuries, it becomes harder to sell them without causing huge capital losses.
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