Thursday, October 17, 2013

US debt timebomb defused - for now. But US reputation tarnished as China eyes opportunity.

The political brinkmanship in Washington might be over, but it seems the reputation of the United States as a global economic power has been damaged.

US Treasury bills, regarded as the world's safest investment, have been hurt by the uncertainty with interest rates rising in recent days.

AUDIO: US reputation damaged by debt ceiling impasse (AM)

The director of the Institute of Global Finance at the New South Wales University, Fariborz Moshirian, believes the damage could also be exploited by China.

The world's second biggest economy has been positioning its currency as an alternative to the US dollar, which for now remains the world's reserve currency.

"I think in the medium term the damage to the US as an economy is quite severe simply because the US currency is used as a major world currency," he said.

"And now other countries, particularly China, will think that their currency could emerge over time as a competitor to the US dollar."

Dr Moshirian says the crisis has provided with an opportunity China to deepen its capital market, attract foreign investors and ensure that its banks are more competitive with those in Europe and the US.

"China's economy has not been affected," he said.

"China didn't need to rescue her banking system, and they are sitting on massive amount of foreign exchange reserves and so Chinese financial market is very strong.

"During the Great Depression the UK was the largest creditor and US basically took over that. And now in this new era we are seeing that the US becoming the largest debtor and yet China is becoming almost a larger creditor in the world."

Dr Moshirian says there is little that central banks around the world, including the Reserve Bank Australia, could do in the event of a US debt default.

"I think if the US defaults, the Fed in US becomes a weak central bank," he said.

"And unlike during the GFC when the US Fed led a massive coordination amongst other central banks to provide financial liquidity in the system, I'm afraid this time around in the wake of any default by the US, the US Fed might not be able to provide the same leadership.

"That means we might have massive liquidity crisis in the banking system as well as in non-bank corporations."

This means there could be a big change in "in international financial architecture".

"The US currency as a global currency may no longer remain as the key currency," he said.

"And also capital market in the world will become much deeper so that they don't need to rely only on the US bond market as a way of financing their activities."

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