Analysts predict little change in yuan band

A clerk counts yuan bills at a bank in Huaibei, East China's Anhui province. [Photo/IC]

China's central bank is too preoccupied with supporting the economy to contemplate widening the yuan's trading band this year, a Bloomberg survey shows.

Of 22 analysts polled in the past week, 14 forecast there will be no changes made in 2015 to the range in which the currency can move. Four predicted a move in the first half of the year, three said they expected a revision in the third quarter and one chose the October-December period.

The People's Bank of China allows the yuan to diverge a maximum 2 percent from its daily reference rate, and 15 respondents said the limit will probably expand to 3 percent in the next adjustment.

"Attempts to engineer a soft landing will see 2015 full of policy measures but not a widening of the band," said Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank SA in Gland, Switzerland, whose yuan estimates were the second-most accurate in the latest rankings compiled by Bloomberg.

China is loosening control of its currency and interest rates as Premier Li Keqiang gives market forces a greater role in the world's second-largest economy, which expanded in 2014 at the slowest pace in 24 years.

A widening of the yuan's trading range may make the exchange rate more volatile, heightening the risk of capital outflows that can lead to increases in borrowing costs.

The PBOC cut its benchmark interest rates in November for the first time since 2012.

Band pressure

The yuan sank to within 0.1 percentage point of the lower end of its trading range during three of the past five trading days, the band's biggest test since it was doubled in March 2014.

The spot rate's discount to the fixing widened to a record 1.95 percent on Monday. Under the current exchange-rate system, a move to the limit would prompt the central bank to intervene, adjust the reference rate or widen the band.