The International Monetary Fund has increased the weighting of the United States dollar and the Chinese yuan during its review of the currencies that make up the valuation of its Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket, an international reserve asset.
This was disclosed in a post on its website titled, “IMF Executive Board Concludes Quinquennial SDR Valuation Review and Determines New Currency Weights for SDR Valuation Basket”.
The new basket gives the US dollar and the Chinese yuan slightly higher weights, while the British pound, euro, and Japanese yen get lower weights.
The yuan, also known as the renminbi, was added to the basket of currencies in 2016, marking a watershed moment in Beijing’s efforts to internationalize its currency.
The SDR is an international reserve asset created by the IMF to supplement the official reserves of its member countries.
What you should know
The updated SDR weights maintain the same ranking as the initial weights established in the 2015 assessment.
- The US dollar’s weighting also increased, from 41.73% to 43.38%. Similar the weighting of the Chinese currency yuan increased from 10.92% to 12.28%.
- “Directors broadly acknowledged the progress made on financial market reforms in China, while calling for additional efforts to further open and deepen the onshore renminbi market, with some Directors also stressing the need to further enhance data transparency,” IMF said
- The euro’s weighting declined to 29.31% from 30.93%, the yen fell to 7.59% from 8.33% and the British pound fell to 7.44% from 8.09%.
- The IMF said in a statement its executive board had determined the weighting based on trade and financial market developments from 2017 to 2021.
- “Directors concurred that neither the COVID-19 pandemic nor advances in Fintech have had any major impact on the relative role of currencies in the SDR basket so far,” the IMF said.
- The amounts of each of the five currencies will be calculated on July 29, 2022 (the transition date) following the new weights and will go into effect on August 1, 2022.
IMF Directors agreed with the Managing Director’s proposal for the next SDR review to take place on a five-year basis, to be concluded before end-July 2027.
