Offshore Yuan (CNH) Data Coverage: Indicators, Sources and Release Times

Quick answer

The FXMacroData production catalogue lists 19 series under the CNH code. They are mainland China statistics, not offshore ones: the People's Bank of China (PBoC), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) and ChinaBond publish them for the onshore economy, and the CNH entries return the same values as the matching CNY series. The trade-weighted index comes from the Bank for International Settlements.

That is the right data for USD/CNH: the offshore yuan trades on the same Chinese macro fundamentals as the onshore yuan. What differs is the market, not the economy. Coverage includes the Loan Prime Rate, the 7-day reverse repo rate, government bond yields, CPI, PPI, GDP, the PMI, retail sales, unemployment, the PBoC balance sheet and the current account.

This guide explains how CNH differs from CNY, what the CNH catalogue contains, when the underlying releases come out, and how traders use mainland data in offshore yuan trading. If you already know the CNY guide, the differences are in the next section and in the trading patterns at the end.

CNH versus CNY, and who publishes the data

Two markets, one currency. CNY is the onshore renminbi, traded in mainland China within a band of 2 percent either side of the PBoC's daily central parity fixing. CNH is the same currency traded offshore, mainly in Hong Kong, without that band. The two rates usually sit close together; when the CNH-CNY spread widens it signals offshore pressure that onshore controls are holding back.

No separate offshore statistics. China does not publish a distinct set of macro statistics for the offshore market. FXMacroData's CNH catalogue therefore serves the mainland series under the CNH code, so a model keyed on USD/CNH can request them directly. The values are identical to the CNY catalogue. The CNY catalogue has four series the CNH list does not: M1, M2, FX reserves and gold reserves.

The publishers. The PBoC publishes the Loan Prime Rate, the 7-day reverse repo rate and its balance sheet. The NBS publishes CPI, core CPI, PPI, GDP, the manufacturing PMI, retail sales and unemployment. SAFE publishes the current account. Government bond yields are from the ChinaBond (CCDC) curve, and the trade-weighted index is the BIS nominal effective exchange rate (broad basket, 2020=100).

Each release is stored with an announcement_datetime, and new releases typically reach the API within seconds of official publication (see release speed).

CNH indicators covered

These are the 19 series listed at /v1/data_catalogue/cnh. The slug in brackets is the indicator value used in API calls.

Policy and rates

• 1-year Loan Prime Rate (policy_rate): the benchmark lending rate, published on the 20th of each month, from the August 2019 reform onwards.
• 7-day reverse repo rate (risk_free_rate): the PBoC's main short-term policy rate; the catalogue's daily history begins in June 2026. Offshore funding rates such as CNH HIBOR are not part of the catalogue.
• China government bond yields (1-year, 2-year, 3-year, 5-year, 7-year, 10-year, 30-year): daily ChinaBond yields for onshore government bonds. The China-US yield gap is one of the main drivers of USD/CNH.

Inflation

• CPI inflation (inflation): year-on-year CPI from the NBS, from 1998.
• Core CPI (core_inflation): CPI excluding food and energy; the catalogue's history currently starts in October 2025.
• PPI (ppi): year-on-year producer prices for industrial products, from 1993.

Growth and activity

• GDP (gdp): quarterly GDP at current prices in CNY billion (the mainland economy is measured in yuan, whichever market the currency trades in).
• NBS manufacturing PMI (business_confidence): the official PMI, published on the last day of the month it describes. 50 separates expansion from contraction.
• Retail sales (retail_sales): year-on-year growth in retail sales of consumer goods; history currently starts in October 2025.

Labour market

• Surveyed urban unemployment rate (unemployment): the monthly national rate, from January 2018.

External and balance sheet

• Current account balance (current_account_balance): quarterly, in USD billion, from SAFE.
• Trade-weighted index (BIS NEER) (trade_weighted_index): monthly nominal effective exchange rate of the renminbi.
• PBoC total assets (cb_assets): the monthly monetary authority balance sheet, in CNY trillion.

Release timing for CNH-relevant data

The releases follow Beijing time (Asia/Shanghai, UTC+8, no daylight saving). Hong Kong, where most CNH trades, is on the same clock, so offshore markets are open when the data land.

Because CNH trades around the clock, it is usually the first yuan price to react to Chinese data released outside onshore hours and to US data overnight. Upcoming dates for all of these are on the release calendar.

Worked example: the August 2026 CPI

The NBS published August 2026 CPI on Wednesday 9 September 2026 at 09:30 Beijing time. Requesting it under the CNH code:

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" "https://api.fxmacrodata.com/v1/announcements/cnh/inflation?start_date=2026-09-01"

The newest row in the response (abridged to the core fields):

{
  "date": "2026-08-31",
  "val": 0.8,
  "announcement_datetime": 1788917400,
  "previous_value": 0.5,
  "previous_date": "2026-07-31"
}

val is CPI inflation of 0.8 percent year on year for August, up from 0.5 percent in July, and announcement_datetime 1788917400 is 01:30:00 UTC, which is 09:30 in Beijing and Hong Kong. The same request with cny in place of cnh returns the same row, because both codes serve the NBS figure.

How traders use this data in USD/CNH

The CNH-CNY spread as a stress gauge

Compare USD/CNH with USD/CNY and the daily fixing. Weak Chinese data or a policy cut often show up first as CNH trading weaker than CNY; a persistent gap suggests the market expects more depreciation than the PBoC is allowing onshore.

Rate differentials

The 7-day reverse repo rate, the LPR and the 2-year and 10-year China yields, set against US equivalents, frame the carry cost of holding CNH. A wider negative gap tends to support USD/CNH.

Growth surprises and the Asia proxy trade

The NBS PMI and the monthly activity data move USD/CNH, and often AUD/USD and NZD/USD at the same time. Traders use CNH as a liquid expression of a view on Chinese growth.

Inflation and policy room

Low CPI and negative PPI give the PBoC room to ease, which is negative for the yuan on rate grounds. Track core CPI to judge whether low inflation is food- and energy-driven or broad-based.

Mainland holidays

During mainland holidays such as the October Golden Week and Lunar New Year, the onshore CNY market closes while CNH keeps trading. Data released just before or after a holiday, such as the PMI on the last day of September, can be priced only offshore for several days, so CNH carries the whole reaction until onshore trading resumes.

Related pages

• Onshore yuan (CNY) data coverage guide
• People's Bank of China guide: LPR, reverse repo and CNY
• USD/CNY dashboard
• Release calendar
• FXMacroData data coverage across all 22 currencies