CNY/HKD - Live Converters & Chart

Chinese Yuan (CNY) outlook

Increasingly, the yuan is being used as a barometer for progress made on US-China trade talks. For that reason, it fell sharply in the weeks leading up to this report (May-17).

Trade tensions were ramped up in May after President Trump announced higher tariffs on Chinese goods, after China retaliated with tariffs of its own, and then after Trump placed Huawei on the "entity list," thereby making it impossible for the tech giant to do business with US firms.

Between May-6 and May-17, the yuan weakened in the offshore market by 3 percent (a considerable amount for a government-controlled currency) to a 5-month low of 6.95 per USD. Onshore yuan, which is more easily controlled by the PBOC, reached towards 6.92.

All eyes now are on the 7.0 exchange rate. Will the PBOC allow the yuan beyond that? An RBC strategist believes that’s unlikely in the short term because a weaker yuan would create more friction between China and the US. Trump often alleges that China purposefully weakens its currency to gain a trade advantage.

“A rapid conclusion to the US–China trade deal and … complete rollback of tariffs ... would be an effective catalyst to drive RMB higher,” Citibank said.

Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) outlook

On balance, the Hong Kong dollar strengthened steadily in the February-April period. By recent standards, it was particularly strong against the euro at rates near HK$8.825. It was near the weaker boundary of its US dollar trading range, at HK$7.844. Against a basket of currencies, the US dollar was up 1.5 percent on the year by April-22, implying the same year-to-date gain for HKD.

HKD’s strength comes in spite of this year’s dovish turn by the US Federal Reserve, whose actions Hong Kong’s central bank must follow. The Fed has ditched two interest rate hikes from its 2019 projections, but fortunately for holders of HKD, the rest of the world has problems too and other important central banks have also turned dovish, removing much of the incentive for selling HKD.

Read the full article Hong Kong Dollar Forecasts.

The CNY/HKD mid-rate is the rate you will see quoted online or the news, nobody except the largest banks and businesses can get exchange rates close to this mid-rate. It is actually just the theoretical half-way point (hence mid-rate) between the last rate at which the CNY / HKD was traded (bought or sold) in the international markets.