China Not Yet Affected by Ruble's Slide

        BEIJING-China hasn't seen any impact on cross-border capital flows due to the steep slide in the Russian ruble but it is watching the situation closely, an official at the Chinese foreign exchange regulator said Thursday.
        "There has not yet been a visible impact from the ruble's fall, and this will require some time to evaluate," said Wang Yungui, a director at the policy and regulation department of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. "So far, we don't see an obvious impact on cross-border capital flows."
        The official, speaking to reporters, also called on Chinese companies doing business with Russia to use currency forwards, swaps and other financial instruments to limit risk.
        The ruble plunged to a record low against the dollar earlier this week as global oil prices tumbled and Western sanctions started to bite. That prompted the Russian central bank to raise interest rates by 6.5 percentage points to 17%.
        On Wednesday, the currency bounced back in a day of volatile trading after the central bank announced measures to ease banking regulations in an effort to convince Russians to keep their money in the national currency.
        But the ruble has still lost about half of its value against the dollar since the start of the year.
        Write to Grace Zhu at grace.zhu@dowjones.com
        (END) Dow Jones Newswires

        December 17, 2014 23:21 ET (04:21 GMT)

#GraceZhu
#China
#Ruble