Influenced by factors such as the continuous interest rate increase of the Federal Reserve, the fluctuation of the RMB exchange rate has intensified this year, and import and export enterprises face greater risks in exchange rate. In this regard, some researchers believe that the market will face a more complex investment and production environment in the future, and relevant enterprises and financial institutions should further improve their investment and research capabilities in such aspects as the RMB exchange rate, and in-depth study of risk hedging tools to better manage the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.
According to the data, compared with the fluctuation rate of the RMB exchange rate before 2017, which was basically less than 4%, the fluctuation rate of the RMB exchange rate rose by 2 percentage points this year, and the fluctuation is increasingly obvious. "Especially for import enterprises, under the background of the devaluation of the RMB this year, the cost has been rising and the pressure is huge. A shop selling imported latex mattresses near my home has raised the price several times this year, which has affected its sales to some extent." Zhao Xiaoxia, manager of the Green Dahua Futures Financial Research Center, told the Futures Daily, Some enterprises that issue bonds overseas have also been greatly affected by rising costs. For example, an enterprise issued 100 million dollars of bonds overseas at the beginning of the year. If the exchange rate at that time was 6.36, the current exchange rate is 6.91. Even if other costs are not included, the cost of the enterprise in terms of exchange rate alone will increase by 55 million yuan.
Cao Yanghui, deputy director of Nanhua Futures Research Institute, told reporters that information disclosure showed that 665 A-share listed enterprises had incurred exchange losses in the first half of this year, with a total loss of 24.567 billion yuan.
Tan Yaling, the president of the China Foreign Exchange Investment Research Institute, believes that the reason for this situation is mainly due to the lack of preparation of enterprises before this. "In fact, in March this year, a customer asked me about the future trend of the RMB exchange rate. Based on my understanding of the market, I predicted that the RMB exchange rate would probably decline in the future, and suggested that they prepare in advance." Tan Yaling said that the direction of the change of the RMB exchange rate before 2018 was relatively easy to judge, and the market expectations were relatively consistent, Therefore, enterprises and relevant financial institutions have weak awareness of risk prediction and management of RMB exchange rate.
At present, domestic enterprises in China mainly avoid exchange rate risk through the inter-bank market, and the research on the trend of exchange rate is not very in-depth. According to Cao Yanghui, although banks currently provide four RMB exchange rate risk management tools, namely, spot, forward, swap and option, most enterprises use spot transactions that are settled upon receipt and purchased upon use.
"In addition, some enterprises will avoid risks through forward settlement and sales of foreign exchange. This is mainly because compared with other methods, forward settlement and sales of foreign exchange are relatively convenient. Enterprises can directly trade through banks, and their requirements for professional knowledge are slightly lower." Zhao Xiaoxia added.
Statistics show that spot transactions account for more than 70% of the four types of foreign exchange transactions, and even 90% in some special months, followed by forward transactions. With the growing popularity of derivatives, options have also been accepted by more and more enterprises, and foreign exchange option transactions have gradually increased, sometimes even exceeding forward.
In general, the four tools provided by the inter-bank market can meet the exchange rate risk management needs of enterprises in most cases. However, Cao Yanghui said that there are still four problems: first, the tools provided by different banks will be different, and the openness of the inter-bank market in this regard is not enough; Second, banks mainly provide tools, and rarely provide exchange rate consulting services for enterprises; Third, current transactions are mainly spot and forward, and flexible swaps and options lack transaction basis due to limited corporate awareness; Fourth, the settlement and sale of foreign exchange with banks must comply with the principle of actual needs, and there are certain threshold requirements, which sometimes cannot meet the personalized risk hedging needs of enterprises.
Although RMB exchange rate futures have become a popular trading variety in overseas markets, they have not been launched in China at present. With the advancement of the "Belt and Road" construction, the process of RMB internationalization has accelerated, and the market demand for offshore RMB has gradually increased. According to the statistics of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, RMB deposits in Hong Kong reached 584.521 billion yuan in June this year, and the hedging demand for RMB exchange rate risk is also increasingly urgent. Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the CSRC, said recently that in order to help enterprises related to the "Belt and Road" manage exchange rate risk, it will explore and promote the listing of RMB foreign exchange futures in the future.
It is understood that at present, the Singapore Stock Exchange, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, CME, etc. have all launched RMB exchange rate futures, among which the transactions of the Singapore Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange are the most active, and their targets are offshore RMB. These offshore RMB futures are relatively flexible in the trading mechanism. In particular, the Singapore Stock Exchange has even launched RMB exchange rate flexible futures contracts. The trading parties can agree on their own expiration dates according to their own exchange rate risks, which can better meet the exchange rate risk management needs of most enterprises. "But the settlement mainly refers to the offshore RMB price, and there will still be some differences between the offshore price and the onshore price. Therefore, for domestic enterprises, using the RMB exchange rate futures of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange or the Singapore Stock Exchange to hedge, on the one hand, there will be barriers to capital access, on the other hand, there will also be risks of the price difference between offshore and onshore." Cao Yanghui said.
In Cao Yanghui's view, there is currently a lack of a unified, open and transparent foreign exchange derivatives trading market to provide enterprises with diversified foreign exchange hedging instruments, so it is necessary to develop domestic foreign exchange risk hedging instruments, such as futures, options and other over-the-counter derivatives. First, futures and option contracts are distributed in the coming months, which can provide enterprises with risk hedging tools at different times; Secondly, the two-way trading mechanism is also very helpful for enterprises to flexibly avoid the risk of exchange rate fluctuations; Finally, the margin trading mechanism of futures and options can also save enterprises a lot of capital costs.
"In fact, if RMB foreign exchange futures are listed in China, foreign trade enterprises can not only more easily use these tools to manage exchange rate risk and avoid heavy losses caused by large fluctuations in the RMB exchange rate, but also do not have to find appropriate hedging tools in overseas exchanges, which can further reduce operating costs. This is of great significance for the steady operation of enterprises. " Yin Dan, head of macro strategy of CITIC Futures Research Department, added.
In addition, Cao Yanghui believes that the listing of derivatives tools is also conducive to deepening the reform of the RMB exchange rate system. "However, most enterprises do not have a high level of awareness of exchange rate derivatives, and futures intermediaries need to do a lot of cultivation work."
Editor in charge: Zhang Yao
