Worries over emerging markets deepening: BIS

Tuesday, 15 September 2015 00:23 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: Concerns over the world’s major emerging economies, and in particular China, are growing as financial investors reassess the outlook for global growth, the Bank of International Settlements said on Sunday.

After a month of turmoil for stocks and commodities, the quarterly update from the Switzerland-based forum for major central banks avoided making predictions about whether the turbulence was likely to deepen.

Introducing the report in a briefing for journalists, Claudio Borio, head of the BIS’ monetary and economic department, said that the falls in China’s stock market should be seen as part of a broader response to increasingly stark financial imbalances.

“We are not seeing isolated tremors, but the release of pressure that has gradually accumulated over the years along major fault lines,” he said.

The report pointed to risks stemming from the build-up of trillions in dollar-denominated debt in the corporate sector across the developing world and to related booms in asset prices.

The BIS also laid out data which showed Chinese banks saw net capital outflows of $ 109 billion in the first quarter of 2015, adding that capital may continue to trickle out.

“Investors increasingly focused on growing vulnerabilities in emerging market economies (EMEs), particularly China, as they reassessed the global growth outlook,” the bank said in the summary of its main report. It also pointed to the changes China has made to how it manages the yuan currency as having been another source of instability on markets. “The Chinese authorities’ decision in August to allow the renminbi to depreciate against the dollar gave markets a renewed jolt,” it said.

“The move intensified investors’ concerns about growth prospects for China, EMEs more broadly, and ultimately, the global economy.”