Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange ...

Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies

U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of International Affairs

October 15, 2014

This Report reviews developments in international economic and exchange rate policies and is submitted pursuant to the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, 22 U.S.C. ? 5305 (the "Act").1

1The Treasury Department has consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and International Monetary Fund management and staff in preparing this Report.

Contents

KEY FINDINGS ........................................................................................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 6 U.S. MACROECONOMIC TRENDS......................................................................................... 6 THE DOLLAR IN FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKETS ..................................................... 12 ANALYSES OF INDIVIDUAL ECONOMIES ....................................................................... 13

ASIA........................................................................................................................................... 13 China ..................................................................................................................................... 13 Japan ..................................................................................................................................... 18 South Korea .......................................................................................................................... 20 Taiwan................................................................................................................................... 22

EUROPE...................................................................................................................................... 24 Euro Area .............................................................................................................................. 24 Switzerland ........................................................................................................................... 26 United Kingdom.................................................................................................................... 27

WESTERN HEMISPHERE.............................................................................................................. 28 Brazil..................................................................................................................................... 28 Canada................................................................................................................................... 29 Mexico .................................................................................................................................. 29

ANNEX I: GLOBAL IMBALANCES IN THE POST-RECESSION PERIOD ............................................ 31 ANNEX II: ADEQUACY OF FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES ....................................................... 34 GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS IN THE REPORT ................................................................................ 37

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Key Findings

The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 (the "Act") requires the Secretary of the Treasury to provide semiannual reports on the international economic and exchange rate policies of the major trading partners of the United States. Under Section 3004 of the Act, the Report must consider " whether countries manipulate the rate of exchange between their currency and the United States dollar for purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustment or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade."

This report covers developments in the first half of 2014, and where pertinent and available, data through end-September 2014. This report reviews the macroeconomic and exchange rate policies of economies accounting for 71 percent of U.S. foreign trade and assesses global economic developments more broadly. The Report concludes that global growth ? and global job creation ? continue to disappoint, due principally to chronically weak global demand, itself a function of a global adjustment process that has been asymmetric and disproportionately borne by deficit economies. Accordingly, much more needs to be done to foster strong, sustainable and balanced growth, including but not limited to increased demand growth in economies with large external surpluses. This will require more accommodative macroeconomic policies in economies with external surpluses or high unemployment, greater encouragement of consumption and investment where demand is weak, further progress toward market determined exchange rates where they do not now exist, and, to boost longer-term growth, robust implementation of well-designed structural reforms.

U.S. economic growth rebounded strongly in the second quarter of this year after being held down by several temporary factors in the first quarter. Favorable underlying fundamentals suggest that the economy will continue to grow at an above-trend pace through the end of 2015. A consensus of private forecasters is projecting real GDP growth of 3 percent over the second half of 2014 and 2.9 percent over the four quarters of 2015. Job creation has accelerated in the first eight months of 2014 and the unemployment rate has moved lower. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 215,000 per month on average over the first eight months of 2014, notably faster than the 185,000 monthly average during the last six months of 2013. The federal deficit continued to narrow sharply in FY 2014 to 2.8 percent of GDP from to 4.1 in FY 2013 and 6.8 in FY 2012. The Administration's proposed FY 2015 Budget would trim the deficit further and put publicly held debt on a declining path as a share of the economy.

Global growth, at just 2.7 percent in the first half of 2014 according to the IMF, remains too weak to generate the many millions of new jobs that are needed. It also increasingly risks being unbalanced. The recovery in the United States appears to be gathering strength. But demand growth in the euro area has been persistently weak throughout the post-crisis recovery period. Large output gaps have left inflation in the euro area significantly below the ECB's target level. With policy rates near zero, the sustained decline in inflation to very low levels has raised real interest rates and is a further impediment to recovery, particularly in the euro area periphery where the debt overhang is largest. Euro area growth slowed in the second quarter and remains too low to significantly reduce unemployment. Japanese growth also has become more uncertain, including from a large, tax-induced contraction in the second quarter. On current policies, the IMF projects euro area and Japanese growth at just 0.8 and 0.9 percent, respectively,

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in 2014. The pace of growth this year also has slowed in emerging market and developing economies, to just 4.4 percent, which will be the third consecutive year of declining growth rates ? down from 6.2 percent in 2011.

The main global challenge is to boost the present pace of demand growth, which in turn will bolster job growth. Given the low inflation and low interest rates, there appears to be more than ample room to do so without sacrificing a collective commitment to stable prices and long-run fiscal sustainability. The longer the global economy continues to underperform, the more difficult it will be to secure stronger long-term growth rates if much needed public and private investments are not made, and the greater the risk that the long-term unemployed fail to obtain critical job skills. More supportive macroeconomic policies are essential in the near-term, and higher infrastructure investments would raise potential growth over the medium to long term.

Policies to boost demand in the surplus economies would be particularly powerful in driving the global adjustment process and contributing to the achievement of stronger, more sustainable, and more balanced global growth. While there have been some successes in reducing global imbalances ? most notably in the United States and China ? too much of the progress is due to demand compression in deficit economies, without offsetting demand expansion in surplus economies.

China's current account surplus in 2013 came in a bit below 2 percent of GDP, down significantly from its peak of 10.1 in 2007. This decline was driven by RMB appreciation and by very rapid growth of domestic investment, currently at around 48 percent of GDP, a level that is unlikely to be sustained. As China's reform strategy proceeds and investment as a share of GDP comes down, it is important that domestic consumption ? and not a renewed dependence on external demand ? drive China's growth.

The total balance of Asian "newly industrialized economies"2 surpluses more than doubled between 2006 and 2013. Korea's surplus reached 6.1 percent of GDP in 2013, and exceeded 6.5 percent of GDP in the first half of 2014. Taiwan's surplus has reached 13 percent of GDP. These economies have scope to contribute to global rebalancing by boosting domestic demand and ceasing intervention in exchange markets.

The euro area's surplus now exceeds China's surplus as a share of global GDP. In Germany, domestic demand growth has been persistently weak, and its current account surplus remains at over 7 percent of GDP. Adjustment and demand compression in the euro area periphery has not been matched with accommodative policies in the euro area core.

With respect to developments in China, starting in February 2014, the PBOC intervened and pushed the reference rate lower to weaken the RMB in a move seen by many market analysts as an effort to introduce more volatility and two-way risk into the market. Between mid-February and late April, the RMB depreciated by 3.1 percent. Since late April, it has partially recovered, appreciating by 1.9 percent. On balance, in the first nine and a half months of 2014, the RMB has depreciated by 1.4 percent against the dollar after strengthening by 2.9 percent in 2013.

2 Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan.

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The gradual appreciation of the RMB in July and August and low apparent levels of intervention indicates some renewed willingness by the authorities to allow a stronger domestic currency and to reduce intervention in line with Strategic & Economic Dialogue (S&ED) commitments. The nominal effective exchange rate has appreciated 1.6 percent from the beginning of the year through end-September. However the reference rate against the dollar, a key tool used by the PBOC to shape market expectations, is down 0.8 percent.

There are a number of continuing signs that the exchange rate adjustment process remains incomplete and that the RMB has further to appreciate before reaching its equilibrium value. First, China continues to generate sizeable current account surpluses and attracts large net inflows of foreign direct investment. China's current account surplus plus inward foreign direct investment in 2013 was $370 billion, or about 4 percent of China's GDP, and remained in that range in the first half of 2014. Second, the reduction in the current account surplus as a share of China's GDP has been supported by an unsustainably rapid pace of investment growth. Finally, China has continued to see rapid productivity growth, which suggests that continuing appreciation is necessary over time to prevent the exchange rate from becoming more undervalued. All of these factors indicate a RMB exchange rate that remains significantly undervalued and the need for ongoing further appreciation.

China should allow the market to play a greater role in determining the exchange rate. This includes refraining from intervention within the band and adjusting the reference rate if market pressures push the exchange rate to the edge of the band. In line with its S&ED commitments, China should build on the apparent recent reduction in foreign exchange intervention and durably curb its activities in the foreign exchange market. We will continue to monitor these issues closely going forward. In line with the practice of most other G-20 nations, China should disclose foreign exchange market intervention regularly to increase the credibility of its monetary policy framework and to promote exchange rate and financial market transparency.

Japan has not intervened in the foreign exchange markets in three years. After a modest surplus in 2013, the current account posted a small deficit in the first half of this year. As Japan takes policy steps to bring about a durable recovery and escape deflation, it is imperative both for the success of those measures and for the global economy that Japan's economic policies work primarily through an increase in domestic demand. In this respect, the Japanese authorities should carefully calibrate the pace of the overall fiscal adjustment, inclusive of expiring fiscal stimulus and reconstruction spending, so that it does not result in too rapid a consolidation that prevents escape from deflation, stalls Japan's growth, and undermines the success of its reform program. Monetary policy cannot offset excessive fiscal consolidation nor can it substitute for necessary structural reforms that raise trend growth and domestic demand.

Korea's current account surplus reached 6.1 percent of GDP in 2013 ? the highest since 1999. The surplus further increased to 6.6 percent of GDP in first half of 2014. Korea is one of only a few surplus economies with a significantly larger external surplus now than before the crisis. Net exports have accounted for all of Korea's 2.9 percent annualized growth in 2014, highlighting the economy's continued dependence on external demand and the weakness of domestic demand. Addressing this weakness has become a priority for the government; such

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