Reply #41: Chinese sovereign wealth fund dumping dollars for strategic investments like gold

[Ghost Dog]

Several reports are coming out of China that there is pressure on state-controlled organisations - notably the country's main sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corporation (CIC) to rapidly build investment in non-Chinese enterprises. While the CIC itself, with apparent access to some $300 billion in funds - and the possibility of more from the government - may be concentrating on hedge funds and other investment entities, there is another sector for Chinese state-owned companies looking at major investment in commodities. Indeed with the funds available as China seems to be dumping its US dollars in favour of more concrete assets, virtually no minerals sector is safe from Chinese participation.

While CIC was set up only two years ago, funded with $200 billion in initial capital, a report to the U.S. Congress noted that according to top Chinese officials, it was created to improve the rate of return on China's $1.5 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and to soak up some of the nation's excess financial liquidity. Depending on its performance with the initial allotment of $200 billion, the CIC might be allocated more of China's growing stock of foreign exchange reserves - and this has already proved to be the case.

Probably the most interesting of the recent reports of what is happening with Chinese sovereign wealth fund investment outside China has come from Paul Mylchreest's Thunder Road Report where an ex-U.S. intelligence service member is quoted. He reports that he has a friend who is in the Chinese Sovereign Wealth fund sector who says - hearsay I know and it wouldn't stand up in court - indicated that the wealth fund analysts were working all hours of the day and night trying to put investment deals together - particularly in the oil and precious metals sectors. The conclusion is that China recognises that the U.S. dollar is going to tank and it wants to convert as much of its trillions of dollars of holdings into strategic assets as possible before the collapse really takes hold.

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