SINGAPORE- The dollar climbed on Monday as protests against COVID restrictions in China rattled financial markets, sending the yuan sliding and pushing nervous investors toward the safe-haven greenback.
The COVID protests have flared across China and spread to several cities in the wake of a deadly fire in Urumqi in the country’s far west, with hundreds of demonstrators and police clashing in Shanghai on Sunday night.
Worries over the unprecedented wave of civil disobedience in a country where in-person protests are rare, the rising COVID cases, as well as how Beijing will react to the situation kept investors on edge.
The offshore yuan fell to an over two-week low in Asian trading, and was last roughly 0.6 percent lower at 7.24 per dollar.
The Australian dollar, often used as a liquid proxy for the yuan, slid more than 1 percent to $0.6687. The kiwi slumped 0.65 percent to $0.62065.
“The pushback from residents that we’ve been seeing, obviously the rising tensions and protests … that was something we probably haven’t been expecting to that degree,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone.
“We’re really looking at the government response to what’s happening … the government response is so unpredictable, and of course that just means derisking.”
The stringent COVID restrictions have taken a heavy toll on China’s economy, and authorities have implemented various measures to revive growth. On Friday, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the nation’s central bank, said it would cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for banks by 25 basis points (bps), effective from Dec. 5.
“If the RRR cut is the only monetary policy tool that the PBOC is going to implement, it may not lead to a significant increase in bank lending,” said Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING.
