ECONOMIC CHAOS IN CHINA

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5327, 13 February 1947, Page 5

ECONOMIC CHAOS IN CHINA

(Press Assn.-

wil'dest inf'lation PRICES DOUBLING EVERY DAY

-Rec. 9.30 p.m.)

SHANGHAI, Feb. 12. h Complete economic confusion resulted to-day wh,en the Chinese dollar fell to a new low record. The Exchange Market opened at 13,500 Chinese dollars to one American dollar and closed at 18,500. Ten ounce gold bars sold for 9,000,000 Chinese dollars. The wild inffation is causing storekeepers to raise their prices from o'O to 100 per cent. each day. Frantic efforts are^heing made to buy and h'oard rice, otherwise business is paralysed. Prices soared in other cities when they received the news of the Shanghai currency depreciation. Everywhere the price of rice skyrocketed. What caused the currency fall is not clear. Some blame the recent m'ove to subsidise exports, which back-fired by causing the price of the exportable merchand-ise to ' jump and which ran counter to the American and British import regulations. Others believed that China's Central Bank had exhausted its gold supply, whileyet others attrihuted the situation to America's abandonment/ of peace efforts in China. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has •summoned leading- economic experts for an urgent review of the nation's financial crisis.

Three thousand Communists raidejr Peiping on Monday, taking the Gove^pmeiit defenders by surprise." The Communists set fire to Government buildings and freed 68 prisoners from gaol. The pro-'Government newspaper Hsin Min Pao reported 200 dead in the streets. A Government armoured train helped to rout the invaders^