China Plans 2020 Deadline for Dismantling Capital Controls

At a gathering next week, top officials in the Communist Party will discuss pledging to “make the yuan convertible under the capital account,” according to a person familiar with talks now under way. The promise would be codified in a document charting the country’s economic course through to 2020, known as the 13th Five Year Plan. The current document only offers an open-ended commitment to “speed up” such reforms.

Such a promise, which may be cut from the final version, would float China’s currency and bring about a fundamental shift in the global economy as capital sloshed uninhibited between China and the rest of the world. Removing the barriers would force China’s leaders to relinquish a key means of economic control, with foreign investors and companies gaining greater access to the country and its 1.3 billion people.