To those who insist their forecasts of the Chinese yuan (RMB) sliding below 7: the offshore yuan rose to its highest since end-August 2018 on Thursday.
The U.S. dollar, meanwhile, hit its three-month low as the Fed is expected to keep the rates steady this year. Minutes from the US central bank’s Dec 18-19 meeting revealed that several policymakers were in favor of steady rates.
The dollar index’s day range on Thursday at press time was 95.05 – 95.19.
The RMB hit 6.7969 per dollar at 11:17am on Thursday after the latest round of US-China trade talks ended on a positive note.
China’s ministry of commerce said the talk “helped establish a foundation for the resolution of each others’ concerns. The ministry gave no additional details of the talks.
This week’s three-day talks in Beijing were the first face-to-face negotiations since Trimp and Xi met in Buenos Aires in December and agreed on a 90-day truce which serves to delay Trump’s previous threat to raise the duties on US$200 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25% on Jan 1.
On Wednesday, the US Trade Representative’s offices said in a statement that official from both countries discussed ways to achieve fairness, reciprocity and balance in trade relations.
“The talks also focused on China’s pledge to purchase a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured, and other products and services from the United States,” the USTR said.