Beijings bid to rope banks into its quest to stem capital outflows wins top marks for creativity, but it wont stem the tide in the long term, says Paul Gruenwald, the chief Asia Pacific economist at S&P Global Ratings.
The Peoples Bank of China is said to have urged lenders earlier this month to issue more dollar-dominated debt offshore, in the hope that the repatriation of proceeds back to the mainland would help stanch declines in the countrys foreign-exchange reserves.
Chinas reserves stockpile slid to $3.01 trillion at the end of 2016, from a record $3.99 trillion in mid-2014, as the central bank sold dollars to cushion the yuans retreat.
China is still in possession of the worlds biggest foreign-currency hoard, but current trends suggest that it could soon fall below $2.98 billion, a threshold that International Monetary Fund analysis suggests as the level needed to manage the exchange rate and open the capital account to cross-border flows.
"The idea of letting Chinese banks finance capital outflows is a creative measure, but its not a sustainable solution," Gruenwald said in an interview.
The central banks attempt to alleviate the pressure on its official reserves by nudging lenders offshore will end up "merely shifting" the burden, rather than easing it, he said.
"If the PBOC sells some of its U.S. Treasuries, its assets fall and Chinas net claims on the rest of the world fall," Gruenwald said. "If banks borrow U.S. dollars from abroad, everything else is the same and their liabilities rise and Chinas net claims on the rest of the world fall."
He puts it succinctly: "Same result, different mechanism."