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The dollar should remain the principal currency in China's $2.27 trillion stockpile of foreign exchange reserves, but the share of the euro and yen should increase, according to an opinion piece in Monday's Financial News, a paper published by the People's Bank of China.
The dollar fell to a 14-month low as word of the report spread before recouping some of its losses after the author, Zhou Hai, told Reuters he was only expressing a personal opinion.
"It is purely my personal view," Zhou, a division chief with the financial research department of the central bank's branch in Harbin, capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
Other researchers have expressed similar views to Zhou, whose piece appeared on the "Theoretics Weekly" page of the paper.
The composition of China's currency reserves is a state secret, but bankers estimate that at least two-thirds of the holdings are invested in dollar-denominated securities.
Senior Chinese officials have expressed concern about the weakness of the dollar but have also acknowledged that the U.S. currency will remain the linchpin of the global financial system for the foreseeable future.
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Any diversification from the dollar is proceeding very gradually, foreign exchange strategists say, not least because Beijing has continued to buy dollars to prevent the yuan from rising since the middle of 2008.
Zhou also wrote in the Financial News that China should improve the yuan's exchange rate mechanism to reduce pressure on the central bank to buy inflows of foreign exchange.
China should exclude the Hong Kong dollar from its official reserves because Chinese can easily obtain the currency, and it is pegged to the U.S. dollar, Zhou added.
Before Monday's piece, Zhou's most recent article was in the August edition of China Finance, according to an Internet search.
The article was titled, "A few thoughts on supporting modern agricultural development through finance — the example of Heilongjiang."
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