China’s Latest Spinning Plate: 10 Trillion In Local Government Debt

Over the past week, we’ve noted (twice) that Chinese QE is now practically inevitable. We learned recently that corporations’ FX deposits rose by some $45 billion in January which, remarkably, represents nearly half of the entire increase logged in 2014. This points to capital flight, as both companies and individuals are increasingly reluctant to hold the yuan in the face of slowing economic growth and the growing perception that devaluation is imminent. We also pointed out that despite the PBoC’s alleged interventions (evidence of which can be found in the data on the change in FI’s position for FX purchases), the yuan is still overvalued on a REER basis, meaning, to quote Barclays, “amid slowing inflation and rising outflows, the costs of limiting CNY weakness are growing – including the unintended effect of placing more stress on CNY market liquidity and interest rates, rendering liquidity easing efforts less effective.” China then, finds itself in a rather precarious position: 

Excessive devaluation at a time when corporates are increasingly choosing to hold their export profits in currencies other than the yuan may hasten capital outflows. The irony of course is that failing to act aggressively to arrest REER appreciation risks cutting into those very same profits or, as we put it previously, “devalue too much, and the capital outflows will accelerate, not devalue enough, and the mercantilist economy gets it.”

Ultimately, this led us to conclude that “the flowchart for what is in store for the world for the next 12-24 months [looks like this]: an ongoing deterioration in Chinese economic conditions, coupled with a weaker, but not weak enough, currency, before the PBOC first go to ZIRP, and then engages in outright QE”.

Against this backdrop, we got even more evidence today that the Chinese economic slowdown may be accelerating as industrial production, retail sales, and FAI all came in light of expectations prompting us to ask (again), “just how much longer do we have to wait until the inevitable moment when the last marginal central bank joins the global currency war and starts “printing money” on its own, finally pushing the world over to the next escalation level in the “[insert noun] wars” chain?”