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

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

For the month ending January 2016

China/Hong Kong

In January, the MSCI China Index returned -12.34%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index returned -10.18% in local currency terms (-10.57% in U.S. dollar terms) and China's domestic CSI300, the A share index, returned -21.04% in local currency terms (-22.08% in U.S. dollar terms). China's currency, the renminbi (RMB), ended the month at 6.58 against the U.S. dollar. The real effective exchange rate was still up 3.9% year-to-date through the end of last December, and was up by 56% from June 2005, when China began to reform its exchange rate mechanism.

Last December, new home sales, on a square meter-basis,...