China's FX reserves drop $70bn in one month!

The scale of intervention by the Chinese central bank to support their weakening currency is revealed in news that China’s foreign exchange reserves fell nearly $70bn in November 2016.

China has the highest stockpile of gold and foreign currency reserves, but investors have become nervous about growth prospects for the Chinese economy and the brittleness of the financial system given high levels of household and local government debt. Money has been flowing out of China and the central bank has intervened by buying their own currency and selling dollars, euros, yen and other foreign currencies in exchange.

China issuing tighter controls on Chinese companies investing overseas in a big to limit the scale of capital flight. Naturally people will try to find ways around these capital controls - the FT article below looks at some of the quirky ways in which this is being attempted.