Matthews Asia May 2016 Country Updates: China, India, Japan, Korea & Southeast Asia

Matthews Asia May 2016 Country Updates: China, India, Japan, Korea & Southeast Asia

China/Hong Kong

In May, the MSCI China Index returned -0.61%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index returned -0.50% in local currency terms (-0.66% in U.S. dollar terms) and China's domestic CSI300, the A share index, returned 0.62% in local currency terms (-1.03% in U.S. dollar terms). China's currency, the renminbi (RMB), ended the month at 6.59 against the U.S. dollar. The real effective exchange rate was down 3% year-to-date through the end of April, but was up by 51% from June 2005, when China began to reform its exchange rate mechanism.

Over the first four months of 2016, new home sales, on a square meter-basis, rose 38.8% year-on-year,...