IMF Greenlights Addition Of Chinese Yuan To SDR Basket: Wall Street Responds

While the world was following the tragic events unfolding on Friday night in France where hundreds of innocent civilians were killed or injured, an important economic development took place at the IMF, whose staff and head Christine Lagarde, officially greenlighted the acceptance of China’s currency – the Renminbi, or Yuan – into the IMF’s foreign exchange basket, also known as the Special Drawing Rights.

As Reuters summarizes, the recommendation paves the way for the Fund’s executive board, which has the final say, to place the yuan on a par with the U.S. dollar Japanese yen, British pound and euro at a meeting scheduled for November 30. At this point only an explicit veto by US political interests deep behind the stage can derail the CNY’s ascension into the SDR. The United States, the Fund’s biggest shareholder, has said it would back the yuan’s inclusion if it met the IMF’s criteria, a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said, adding: “We will review the IMF’s paper in that light.”

If the yuan’s addition wins 70 percent or more of IMF board votes, it will be the first time the number of currencies in the SDR basket – which determines the composition of loans made to countries such as Greece – has been expanded.”

I would say that the likelihood of China’s yuan joining the IMF currency basket this year is very high,” said Hong Kong-based Shen Jianguang, chief economist at Mizuho Securities Asia.

“The only thing that could deter this is if the U.S. led a group rejecting the yuan’s inclusion, which could complicate things. But the United States’ current official stance doesn’t reflect such an attitude,” he said.

Unless something dramatically changes in the next three weeks, of course, although that seems unlikely: today Bloomberg reported that Treasury Secretary Lew met with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang and Finance Minister Lou Jiwei on the sidelines of the G-20 Leaders Summit in Antalya, Turkey, according to readout sent via e-mail by U.S. Treasury, where “Secretary Lew reiterated that the United States intends to support the Renminbi’s inclusion in the Special Drawing Rights basket provided the currency meets the International Monetary Fund’s existing criteria.”