Renminbi - Forecast for the future.
A lot is made of the fact that the
renminbi (
RMB), or the yuan is kept artificially low by the Chinese authorities and the truth is that this currant level of 6.83 to the US Dollar is unsustainable in the long term.
The first big test will be the next oil price rise which could come as soon as this winter if it is
particularly cold in the northern hemisphere.
As everybody knows the US got away with consuming 45% of the worlds output not by outworking,outproducing or
outperforming the rest of the world but by convincing them to buy US dollars at an incredibly expensive rate. Suddenly China owns most of these bits of paper and has a vested interest in preserving the value of them or so it seems. The situation would be fine if the euro did not exist and its effect of replacing the dollar as a reserve currency.
China cannot really expect its export markets to continue to grow at the
expense of its own citizens welfare and wealth. The path the Chinese will take is a substitution of export growth with growth in internal consumption and the subsequent growth in services. They can probably maintain 10% annual growth rate with a 10% annual reduction in the rate of the yuan to the dollar.
- 2009 6.83
- 2010 6.15
- 2011 5.54
A full floating exchange rate could be undertaken if there is more transparency and less government cross subsidies of energy costs.
The Chinese
don't have to worry about selling less toasters in the West as most of the western consumer goods factories are gone and it would take at least three years to get them going again.
More cars were sold in China last year then in the US and they will have an appetite for petroleum products to put in them and on them.
Remember China bought 30 billion dollars worth of oil from Iran in 2008. And wouldn't it be better for the Chinese if they could pay for it using some yuan they printed themselves instead of using those hard earned US dollars.
It would probably suit the Iranians too as they buy their toasters from China.
My prediction for the future rate is as my table.
Labels: business, future RNB forecast, renminbi
Image Zoom tool for your website.
Magic Zoom, Magic Zoom Plus ,Magic Thumb,Magic Magnify,and Magic Magnify Plus are now available as Cubecart 4 mods which is great news as I used it on a
fashion site last year and had to hand code it in. They basically provide image zoom ins by clicking and moving the mouse.
For any of you Cubecart developers out there this suite of tools is a godsend for pleasing your customers.
The support at the magictoolbox forum is active and responsive and I have no hesitation in recommending this product.
Labels: cubecart mods, image zoom
Two more shops from GBG
The
football socks shop has gone live for Aptosports this week as has the
fashion knitwear shop Knits2u.
The football socks site is already getting front page position on all the major search engines.
Labels: ecommerce guide, fashion knitwear, football socks, online selling
New online fashion shop
www.mythologie.co.uk went online yesterday offering a fabulous range of high fashion for all the ladies. Check out this great
online fashion shop which is a good example of our current e-commerce offerings.
Labels: fashion, online selling
Problem opening .docx documents ?
With Vista and Office 2007 becoming more popular the problem of opening .docx and .docm attachments is becoming more common for users of older versions of Microsoft Word like MS Office 2003.
Fortunately Microsoft have published a Compatibility Pack which can be downloaded from
here.
If you are running a MAC or Linux machine you could use an online convertor like the one at
www.docx2doc.comLabels: .docx documents, pc repair
Free Online Cashflow Management Tool
I came across this great site that offers
online Cashflow Management with an impressive feature list. It is 100% free at the moment but there is a good chance that it will become a paid subscription site when even more features are added. It is called pulseapp.com and it is great for putting together the cashflow forecast for your new venture.
Features at a glance
- Organize income by companies and projects
- Organize income and expenses with categories
- Integrates with Basecamp project collaboration tool
- Company income history
- Recurring income and expenses
- Multiple user support (to share with investors, co-workers, etc...)
- Potential sales/income tracker
Basecamp is an
online project management system from 37signals.com
Labels: business cashflow calculator, cashflow management, cashflow tools
