Das multipolare Finanzsystem kommt – aber langsam
Was ist nun dran an den Thesen von Pozsar? Nicht wenige halten sie für übertrieben und unrealistisch. Aber es gibt auch von anderer Seite Stimmen, die durchaus einen Trend in Richtung multipolare Weltwährungsordnung sehen. Die FINANCIAL TIMES (FT) fasst es zusammen:
- „(…) during a visit by Xi Jinping to Moscow last week, Vladimir Putin pledged to adopt the renminbi for ‚payments between Russia and countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America‘, in a bid to displace the dollar. And this comes as Moscow is already increasingly using the renminbi for its swelling trade with China and embracing it in its central bank reserves, to reduce its exposure to ‚toxic‘ — American — assets.“ – bto: Wie oft betont sind das Trends am Rand, die aber nichts grundlegend ändern.
- „Does this matter? Until recently, most western economists would have said ‚heck, no‘. After all, it has long been assumed that the closed nature of China’s capital account is an impediment to wider use of its currency.“ – bto: So ist es. Die chinesische Währung ist für Anleger aus dem Westen nicht so sexy. Aber es gibt ja viele andere.
- „One reason is that concerns are afoot that this month’s US banking turmoil, inflation and looming debt ceiling battle is making dollar-based assets less attractive. ‚The dollar is being debased in order to fund the bank bailouts,‘ Peter Schiff, the libertarian economist, thundered this week, echoing a view widespread on the American right.“ – bto: Das Grundproblem ist die viel zu hohe Verschuldung.
- „Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs economist who launched the ‚Brics‘ tag, published a paper this week arguing that ‚the dollar plays far too dominant a role in global finance‘, and calling on emerging markets to cut their risks.“ – bto: Da hätte ich gedacht, dass man das denen nicht sagen muss…
- „(…) the other factor sparking unease is that (…) the Saudi government announced that it will start invoicing some oil exports to China in renminbi. Separately, France just did its first liquid natural gas sale in RMB and Brazil has embraced the currency for some of its trade with China.“ – bto: Frankreich! Das ist doch mal eine Aussage.
- „(…) the dollar’s proportion of global reserves has sunk from 72 per cent in 1999 to 59 per cent, as central banks increasingly diversify their investment funds and discard currency pegs. And it is also true that the advent of wholesale (bank-to-bank) central bank digital currencies could theoretically accelerate this diversification by making it easier for non-American central banks to deal directly with each other in their own currencies.“ – bto: … also das, was Pozsar in seinen Schriften auch beschrieben hat.
- „But the dollar still dominates debt markets, and the volume of dollars held overseas has soared this century. And one striking, and overlooked, detail about this month’s turmoil is that the currency has retained its ‚near record strength vs the G10 and emerging market currencies‘, as Robin Brooks, chief economist of the Institute for International Finance, recently tweeted. Indeed, so many global investors wanted to grab the greenback during the recent crisis that the Federal Reserve launched a daily swaps programme with other central banks.“ – bto: Es ist das entscheidende Instrument der Fed. Man muss aber wissen, dass sich diese Swap-Nachfrage auf die Absicherung früherer Transaktionen fokussiert.
- „(…) before anyone concludes that this means they can completely ignore Putin’s threat, they should look at some thought-provoking research on trade invoicing published last year by the Centre for Economic Policy Research. A decade ago, it was widely assumed that another factor underpinning the dollar was the ‚stickiness‘ of trade invoicing patterns (…). But the CEPR paper suggests this might now be slowly shifting — as Chinese trade has expanded in recent years, RMB use has risen too.“ – bto: Das hat Pozsar überzeugend beschrieben.
- „So much so, in fact, that it now exceeds euro-usage for trade invoicing, which is ‚striking, given China’s low degree of capital account openness‘, the CEPR says. And it argues that ‚contrary to conventional wisdom, lack of capital account openness may not fully prevent the RMB from playing a stronger role as an international and reserve currency‘.“ – bto: Das hat auch damit zu tun, dass der Euro nicht die (hohen) Erwartungen erfüllt hat.
- „The net result, the CEPR predicts, is that a ‚multipolar‘ currency world could emerge in the coming years, of the sort that O’Neill is now calling for. That would not be as dramatic a switch as Putin or Xi might like to see, or that Washington alarmists fear. But, to my mind, it seems a sensible medium-term bet.“ – bto: Und China und Co. arbeiten daran, es zu beschleunigen.
- „And even ‚just‘ a multipolar pattern could come as a shock to American policymakers, given how much external financing the US needs.“ – bto: Es leuchtet ein.
→ ft.com (Anmeldung erforderlich): „Prepare for a multipolar currency world“, 30. März 2023
