China Finance Corporate and Nanning Municipal jointly issued their first China-ASEAN Monetary Index(CAMI) on Tuesday in Nanning, capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. According to the index, the Chinese currency yuan, or Renminbi, has appreciated faster than that of ASEAN countries, and the rate is also faster than the appreciation of U.S. Dollar against ASEAN countries’ currency.CAMI is a comprehensive representation of the fluctuation of monetary exchange rate between Renminbi and currencies of ASEAN countries based on the data of monetary exchange rates of major currencies and trade between China and ASEAN countries. The index will provide efficient reference basis on monetary exchange for China-Asean Free Trade Area(CAFTA) and promote monetary and financial cooperation.
With the rapid increase of market demand, currency exchange rate has been a key issue of CAFTA. Rapid growth in foreign holdings of yuan-denominated assets and use of the Renminbi in cross-border payments will likely reduce currency exchange costs over the long term. The CAMI program will not only play a crucial role in the internationalization of Renminbi, it will also facilitate regional trade and investment between China and the ASEAN.
According to the rules governing the index, CAMI took 19th August 2010 as the starting date and 100 as the starting point. Currencies from ten Asean member states are inclueded in the currency basket and the weight of each currency is calculated through bilateral trade weighting method. In consideration of the stability and comparability of the index, the weight of each currency will be adjusted every three years.
The CAMI of 14th December 2015 is 135.82 point, which rises 35.82 compared to the starting point, which indicates that Renminbi is appreciating to the Asean countries currencies, among which the Malaysian Ringgit, the Singapore Dollar, THB, the Indonesia Rupee, the VND, and the Philippine Peso are the most influential in the trend of the index.
