GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – China’s currency, the renminbi, moves significantly closer to being traded internationally with a new agreement between the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the British Treasury, announced Monday. China and Britain agreed in September 2011 to extend trading in the currency, also called the yuan, by developing London as a trading hub. The new agreement will extend Hong Kong renminbi payments hours to make it easier to settle payments in London. It also sets up a private sector forum that “will work on tightening cooperation between Hong Kong and London, particularly on settlement systems, market liquidity and the development of renminbi financial products”, reports ABC News Australia.
British media note that the agreement gives credence to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s argument that new, stiffer European Union regulations covering financial institutions will not harm The City’s position as a world centre.
Links to other sites: AP/Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times (free, registration required)
Li Dongrong, assistant governor of the People’s Bank of China, is reported by the Xinhua state news agency to have said at a forum Friday 14 January that the “central bank will work to expand trials of cross-border yuan settlement, to facilitate trade and investment. The central bank will promote the policy of allowing exporters to park their foreign revenue overseas.”
The announcement is the third move in a week by Chinese officials, who have been under pressure from other governments and in particular the US, to ease tight currency restrictions. Private and corporate investors will be able to move renminbi, the Chinese currency, to accounts in the US from four state banks as well as a small number of private banks, Beijing said 10 January. And Thursday the government said, reports Xinhua, that “qualified businesses and banks may settle their overseas direct investment in yuan, a move that expands the Chinese currency’s global reach and eases excess domestic liquidity concerns.”
The pressure on China has been stepped up in advance of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington, DC next week.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Financial Times background story
World stock markets slumped Wednesday 23 June, after the initial boost they received from China’s announcement over the weekend that the renminbi exchange rate would become more flexible. Share prices fell on news from the US that sales of new homes were the lowest on record for one month in May 2010. Records used today have been kept since 1963.
US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, meeting on the fringes of the Security Summit organized in Washington DC by the White House, discussed the appreciation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, with Hu saying China intends to pursue a “path of reforming its currency exchange rate formation mechanism based on its own economic and social development needs.” The US has been pushing for greater appreciation of the yuan, and Hu’s remarks appear to imply this will happen, but he also said that the US should not count on the yuan’s appreciation to solve unemployment problems or to balance trade between the two countries, reports Xinhua, the government news agency.
Zhao was performing Chopin in concerts at age 8
Melodie Zhao, age 15 (photo: Vera Makus)
Updated 7 March: link to review in Le Temps Geneva / Saint Prex, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Mélodie Zhao, age 15, will sit down at a grand piano at Geneva’s Victoria Hall Tuesday evening, to a sellout crowd of nearly 2,000 people, to interpret Chopin, in honour of his 200th birthday. It’s one of several Chopin events this week in Geneva which include 24 pianists from around the world, each interpreting one of his Etudes, also at Victoria Hall.
Zhao will perform the complete 27 Etudes (Op. 10 and Op. 25 and three without opus numbers) in one concert, a challenge rarely met by pianists.
“Ernesto”, president of Zamis OSR (Friends of the Suisse Romande Orchestra), which organized Zhao’s concert, calls her “phenomenal” and British classical pianist Andràs Schiff says she is “fantastic.” Ernesto noted in a recent letter to members of the group, inviting them to Tuesday’s concert, that “I will hardly insist on the extraordinary feat that performing all 27 of Chopin’s Etudes in one concert represents: it’s enough to say very few pianists are even up to this.”
Zhao’s relationship to Chopin is very special: at age 13 she became the youngest person to record his complete 24 Etudes with opus numbers, in the Tibor Varga Studios in Switzerland. At age eight she was already performing Chopin’s work in concert halls.
Her relationship to Geneva is also special, with her first completely solo recital at age 10 performed at the Palais de l’Athénée in Geneva, a programme of 70 minutes, with works from several periods.
She has been invited, since age 12, to perform at major festivals and concert series including, in Switzerland, the Davos Festival, Musiksommer am Zurichsee, and les Sommets du Classique in Crans-Montana.
Tuesday’s concert is a return trip to Geneva’s Victoria Hall, where she and Chopin have already enchanted audiences, notably in June 2009 when she played as a soloist with the Geneva Symphony Orchestra (Ed. note: YouTube videos are at the end of this article).
Melodie Zhao and sister Cadenza, at home (photo ©2010: Ellen Wallace)
Saint Prex pianist was Geneva’s youngest recipient of bachelor’s degree
Mélodie, who lives in Saint Prex and attended local schools while also studying from age nine at the Conservatoire in Geneva, is now the youngest student in the master’s degree programme at the conservatory. In 2009 she became the youngest person, at 14, to be awarded a bachelor’s degree by the canton of Geneva.
At the ripe old age of 15, with a demanding schedule of four to eight hours of music a day, six days a week, and a musical maturity uncommon for her age, she’s moved on to other composers.
US President Barack Obama has arrived in Beijing, China after visiting Shanghai where he met with students and called for greater Internet freedom for the Chinese. Obama said in a town-hall style meeting with students that he believes the free flow of information strengthens societies. Obama will try to calm Chinese fears about Washington’s response to the global economic crisis. China is the world’s biggest owner of US Treasury bonds. Chinese leaders have said they fear that the US will try to devalue its way out of the massive obligations it has assumed to save the banking industry and to stimulate a faltering economy.
The government’s head of banking regulation, Liu Mingkang, Monday 16 November criticized the US Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy, saying it is having a “massive impact on global asset prices.” He said a weak dollar and low interest rates were endangering the economic recovery, especially in emerging econmies.
The US continues to call on China to revalue its currency, which it says is making Chinese exports cheaper and undermining other countries’ efforts to stimulate their economies. Economist, Financial Times, Reuters
