China faced pressures from capital outflows in recent months at a time of rising cross-border volatilities, a senior official at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said.
The European Central Bank’s quantitative easing (QE) measures may have “huge spillover impacts” on the rest of the world, while it would exert both positive and negative influences on China, Guan Tao, head of the SAFE’s department of international payments, told a press conference.
“A Europe-version QE would to some extent alleviate the tightening impact of the US tapering off from its QE policy,” he said. “On the other hand, divergent currency policies at the world’s main economies may affect the exchange rates between major currencies, which will intensify volatilities on the international financial market.”
ECB’s monetary policy decision is due at 8:45pm Beijing time today.
Meanwhile, Guan said the mainland may have seen a pattern of “current account surplus and capital account deficit” in the fourth quarter last year.