China's outflows may be worse than they look

Beijing

CHINA'S currency outflows may be bigger than they look, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc warning that a rising amount of capital is exiting the country in yuan rather than in US dollars.

While the nation's foreign-exchange reserves have stabilised and lenders' net foreign-exchange purchases for clients have fallen close to a one-year low, official data shows that US$27.7 billion in yuan payments left China in August. That's compared with a monthly average of US$4.4 billion in the five years through 2014.