China Is Urged To Invest More In Ginnie Mae [WSJ]
By AARON BACK
July 16, 2007
BEIJING -- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson Friday encouraged China to increase its investments in mortgage-backed securities in the U.S., especially Ginnie Mae securities, which are fully backed by the U.S. government.
"Mortgage-backed securities yield a higher rate of return than a traditional U.S. Treasury bond with [the] same credit risk," Mr. Jackson said.
The Government National Mortgage Association, or Ginnie Mae, is a U.S. government-owned corporation. It issues mortgage-backed securities that are fully backed by the U.S. Treasury.
China is seeking to earn a higher return on its massive foreign-exchange reserves, which reached $1.33 trillion at the end of June. Beijing is in the process of creating an agency that will invest $200 billion of those reserves in higher-yielding assets overseas.
China has invested its reserves mainly in U.S. Treasury bonds, and that has helped to keep down U.S. interest rates, making housing and other loans more affordable.
According to U.S. housing-department figures, Chinese investors held less than $3 billion in U.S. mortgage-backed securities in June 2003, but by June 2006 that number had risen to $107.5 billion. The June 2006 total includes securities issued by Ginnie Mae and those issued by the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., or Freddie Mac, which are overseen by the Department of Housing and Urban Development but not backed by the U.S. Treasury.
Figures weren't available on what portion of the securities held by China are issued by Ginnie Mae, but Mr. Jackson said "we have not been a major player in that area."
Mr. Jackson was speaking to reporters during a visit to China, where he met government officials, including the heads of the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Construction. |
