China Losing Confidence in the Dollar

As China's industrial juggernaut has flooded foreign ports with cheap factory-made goods in recent years, its central bank coffers have filled with the bounty flowing back to these shores -- a stash of foreign exchange now exceeding $800 billion. China's leaders have steadily invested the bulk in one primary vehicle: the U.S. dollar.

But on Monday came the latest recent sign that China has grown worried about tying its savings so closely to the dollar, a currency that many economists think is due for a fall. A senior economist at China's State Council -- the equivalent of the cabinet -- said in an interview that China is moving toward a new policy of buying fewer U.S. Treasury bills while shifting slightly toward buying assets that trade in other currencies.

China now boasts the world's second-largest stock of foreign exchange reserves after Japan, and with roughly three-fourths of those holdings now invested in the U.S. dollar and dollar-backed assets such as bonds and real estate, even a slight shift in the composition of China's investments could push the value of the greenback down, some analysts said.

The comments of the senior economist, made on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, confirmed an analysis in Monday's Shanghai Securities News stating that China is inclined to shift some its savings into other currencies such as the euro and the yen, or into major purchases of commodities such as oil for a long-discussed strategic energy reserve.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901042.html

Get ready!

own boundaries. Personally, I'd hold the door open for the multi-nationals to leave this countries so that small companies can flourish. Call the depression payback for us getting fat and lazy and NOT watching what the overlords have been doing.

Brother, can you spare a dime?