Central Bank News'  Instablog

This week eight central banks took policy decisions with three banks cutting rates (Israel, Serbiaand Turkey) and five leaving rates on hold (Indonesia, Iceland, Russia, Latvia and Chile) as the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) monetary easing continues to impact monetary policy decisions worldwide.
This week's rate reduction by Israel and Turkey brings it to a total of five rate cuts in reaction to the BOJ's new phase of monetary easing, which has lead to a drop in the value of the yen and raised fears of an accelerated influx of capital into higher-yielding currencies, threatening to create asset bubbles.
Prior to this week's cuts, Australia and Korea had cut rates, specifically mentioning foreign exchange as part of their reasoning, while Turkey has now cut rates twice since the BOJ's announcement on April 4, in both cases pointing to strong capital inflows.
Israel's move came as a complete surprise to markets, with the Bank of Israel (BoI) combining a 25 basis point cut with a plan to buy some $2.1 billion of foreign exchange this year to ease the pressure on the shekel from "the beginning of natural gas production from the Tamar gas field, the interest rate reductions by central banks worldwide, notably the ECB, and the continued quantitative easing programs in several major economies around the world."
The BoI's intervention in foreign exchange markets follows news the previous week that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) had intervened for the first time since 2007 to weaken its dollar and reports this week that Taiwan's central bank has intensified its intervention in foreign exchange markets to prevent its dollar from rising too much and making its exports more expensive.
Since the BOJ announced its new policy, a total of 17 central banks have cut rates 18 times (Turkey twice) for a total reduction of 935 basis points. However, 13 of those cuts were not in direct response to the BOJ but rather in response to a continuing decline in domestic inflationary pressures and weak economic growth.
The cumulative rate cuts in response to the BOJ by Turkey, Australia, Korea and Israel amount to 175 basis points, still a considerable amount in the course of six weeks.

In addition to lowering their policy interest rates, central banks - especially in emerging markets - are drawing on other weapons in their arsenal, typically macroprudential measures, to respond to the twin challenge of slowing economic growth and capital inflows. Not only do capital inflows tend to push up the value of the currency and thus make exports more expensive, but they also boost local asset prices, such as property and equity prices above a sustainable level.
Thailand finds itself at the center of this issue, with a meeting last Monday between the Bank of Thailand's (BoT) monetary policy committee, government and private sector representatives to discuss an adequate response.
The meeting, which was only been scheduled the week before, lead to speculation that the BoT would cut rates, but this did not occur. The BoT's next scheduled meeting by its monetary policy committee is May 29.
Instead, the BoT has proposed four macroprudential measures to the Thai finance minister, according to press reports, including limiting foreign investors ability to buy some Thai bonds, imposing a fee of foreigners profiting from investing in bonds and compelling foreign investors to hedge their exchange rate risk.
Other ways to deter high capital inflows without raising policy rates and dampening economic activity includes Turkey's decision this week to raise the reserve requirement for foreign currency deposits.
The Philippines has also been experimenting with a similar move in recent months, cutting the rate on the central bank's Special Deposit Account (SDA) facility to make it less attractive for foreign funds to park their money there.

Through the first 20 weeks of this year, 25 percent (or 48) of the 195 policy decisions by the 90 central banks followed by Central Bank News have lead to rate cuts, another weekly increase from 24 percent after 19 weeks and 20 percent after the first 18 weeks.
This week's total rate cuts of 125 basis points boosted the cumulative decline in global policy rates to 2,251 basis points so far this year, pushing the average Global Monetary Policy Rate (GMPR) down to 5.64 percent from 5.66 percent last week and 6.2 percent at the end of 2012.
Most central banks still keep their rates on hold from week-to-week, but it is clear that there has been an acceleration in rate cuts in recent weeks. By the end of this week, 71 of all policy decisions have favoured keeping rates on hold, down from 72 percent last week and 75 percent after the first 16 weeks of this year.

LAST WEEK'S (WEEK 20) MONETARY POLICY DECISIONS:

NEXT WEEK (week 21) features five scheduled central bank policy meetings, including Nigeria, Ghana, Japan, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago.

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Last week 16 central banks took policy decisions with a record eight banks cutting rates by a total of 550 basis points as the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) monetary easing looks to become a watershed event in global monetary policy by opening a new front in the currency wars.
Only weeks after the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors agreed that they "will refrain from competitive devaluation," Australia and Korea - two of the G20 members - surprised markets by cutting interest rates.
Observers questioned the motives behind the two rate cuts as the global economic outlook had not drastically deteriorated.
It is already clear that the ripples from the BOJ's easing is upsetting global balances, with a range of competitors reacting to the 17 percent plunge in the value of the yen to the U.S. dollar so far this year.
The only substantial change in the policy statements from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Bank of Korea (BOK) from April to May was the reference to foreign exchange while their observations about growth were largely unchanged.
The other six central banks that cut rates this week did not refer to exchange rates but said a lack of inflationary pressure had given them space to boost growth.
But the RBA said the exchange rate of the Australian dollar had been "little changed at a historically high level" while the BOK said Korea's output gap would continue for a considerable time due to slow global growth, "the influence of the Japanese yen weakening" and geopolitical risks.
To be sure, the global economy has entered a soft patch. But that is exactly the point of international agreements. When times get tough, policy makers are supposed to consider the international ramifications of their actions and look to the common good.
The official reaction of the international community, both the G20 and the Group of Seven, to the BOJ's new and more aggressive quantitative easing is that benefits everyone as its strengthens global growth by supporting Japan's domestic demand and stopping deflation.
Meanwhile, individual countries are adjusting their policies to the impact of the lower yen and the inflow of excess funds to their markets from the BOJ's easing. Data showed that Japanese investors were net buyers of foreign bonds in recent weeks.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) intervened in foreign exchange markets for the first time since 2007 to weaken its dollar. The move was hardly a surprise after the RBNZ last month pinned some of the blame for the currency's appreciation on Japan's "substantial quantitative easing programme, " which is making life hard for its exporters.
Thailand has been debating how to tackle the rise in its baht currency and capital inflows with the Bank of Thailand (BoT) on Monday meeting with government and private sector representatives to discuss a response.
The Thai finance minister has been vocal in his criticism of the BOT, saying it should take the strength of the currency into account when deciding on policy and not just inflation. So far the Thai central bank has resisted pressure and kept rates unchanged, arguing the inflows are due to investors' confidence in the Thai economy and rate cuts would not make much of a difference.

Apart from Australia and Korea, the central banks of Kenya, Belarus, Poland, Georgia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam also cut rates this week. Seven banks held rates steady: Malawi, Norway, theUnited Kingdom, Malaysia, Peru, Egypt and Mozambique.
Gambia was the only central bank to raise rates this week. Four percent of all rate decisions this year have favored rate hikes, a largely stable ratio. It was Gambia's first rate rise this year, reversing two rate cuts in 2012, with the bank citing accelerating inflation, partly due to currency depreciation.

Since the BOJ announced its "new phase of monetary easing" on April 4, central banks' policy rates have tumbled by a cumulative 1,235 basis points, accounting for 58 percent of the total decline in rates so far this year.
Although the decline in policy rates accelerated this week, the total fall this year only amounts to 2,126 basis points, still a far cry from cuts totaling 6,475 in 2012 and 7,517 in 2011. However, the fall in rates does not reflect the true extent of global monetary easing as it doesn't take into account quantitative easing measures.
Through the first 19 weeks of this year, 24 percent of 186 policy decisions taken by the 90 central banks followed by Central Bank News have lead to rate cuts, a sharp increase from 20 percent after the first 18 weeks.
It was the highest number of rate cuts in one week so far this year, pushing down the average Global Monetary Policy Rate (GMPR) to 5.66 percent from 5.70 percent at the end of April and 6.2 percent at the end of 2012.
The majority of this year's policy decisions still favor unchanged rates, but the trend is declining. At the end of this week, 72 percent of all decisions this year were to keep rates steady, down from 77 percent after the first 14 weeks of this year and 75 percent after the first 16 weeks.

LAST WEEK'S (WEEK 19) MONETARY POLICY DECISIONS:

NEXT WEEK (Week 20) features five central bank policy decisions, including Serbia, Indonesia, Iceland, Latvia and Turkey.
On Monday Thailand's finance minister meets with the Bank of Thailand's monetary policy committee, government officials and the private sector to discuss the rise in the Thai baht. Markets are speculating the meeting will result in a rate cut. The next scheduled policy meeting by Bank of Thailand is on May 29.

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Last week nine central banks took policy decisions, with Hungary continuing its rate-cutting spree and the other eight banks (Namibia, New Zealand, Philippines, Fiji, Japan, Mexico, Colombia and Trinidad & Tobago) keeping rates unchanged as pressure mounted on euro zone policy makers to get serious about reforms and speed up growth.
A quiet exasperation over the lack of action by Europe's policy makers turned into more forceful criticism during the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C. with signs that the dogged belief in austerity as a growth strategy is starting to break down.
The other theme dominating central banking last week was the continuing fallout from Japan's aggressive policy easing, which has lead to a weaker yen and upward pressure on other currencies as some of the Bank of Japan's money looks for higher yield outside the country.
The Bank of Korea's governor expressed his concern over the impact of the weaker yen on the competitiveness of his country's industry; the Bank of Thailand is considering how to reduce the upward pressure on the bath; the Reserve Bank of New Zealand said upward pressure on the overvalued kiwi dollar was growing and the Bank of Israel said money was flowing into its bonds.
Last year's warning by Mervyn King, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, that 2013 could feature "actively managed exchange rates as an alternative to the use of domestic monetary policy" was prescient and slightly ominous.

Through the first 17 weeks of this year, the overwhelming majority of the world's central banks have kept their rates on hold: 78 percent of the 156 policy decisions taken so far by the 90 central banks followed by Central Bank News have lead to unchanged rates, slightly up from 77 percent after 16 weeks.
Globally, 19 percent of policy decisions this year have lead to rate cuts - largely by central banks in emerging economies - unchanged from last week.
Rate rises are still rare - there have only been six so far this year - but this number is likely to rise in the second half of the year as global growth slowly strengthens and inflationary pressures rise, especially in Southeast Asia.

The only real sinkhole in global growth remains Europe and policy makers from around the world appear to be losing their patience with the euro zone's lack of progress in solving its problems.
Through the barrage of statements and communiques from the IMF and G20 meetings, it is clear that global policy makers have decided that Europe's experiment with harsh austerity has gone far enough. Recession, popular dissatisfaction and growing unemployment bear witness to the strategy's failure.
There was a remarkable confluence of criticism of austerity last week: The validity of the academic work used to underpin pro-austerity policies was questioned; the IMF stressed that fiscal tightening should only occur at a pace that economic recovery can handle - underlining the shift away from its traditional position as an advocate of austerity - while African finance ministers insisted euro zone politicians "work harder and faster" so growth in their own economies isn't undermined.
The bottom line is that the fragile global economic recovery may falter without growth in Europe and this year it's economy is set to contract for the second year in a row.
And the criticism, all too often shouted through the streets of Athens, Madrid, Rome and Lisbon, is finally being heard by a growing number of top policy makers.
Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, talked of "adjustment fatigue" and growing tensions over the fairness of public policy, while European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the combination of lower spending and higher taxes may have hit the limits of public acceptance and was now contributing to the recession.
But so far the austerity camp seems unbowed and one its leading proponents, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, even had the audacity to up the ante, saying the European Central Bank would have to raise interest rates if its policy was based purely on German conditions.
Although Germany is doing better than many of its euro zone brethren, it's economy is hardly in need of cooling. The German economy shrank by 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 from the third quarter and is forecast to grow a mere 0.5 percent in 2013, it's inflation rate fell to 1.4 percent in March, below the ECB's target, and the unemployment rate is 5.4 percent.

LAST WEEK'S (WEEK 17) MONETARY POLICY DECISIONS:

Next week (week 18) features seven central bank policy decisions, including heavyweights the United States, the European Central Bank and India, plus Angola, the Czech Republic, Romania and Uganda.

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