Currency war, also known as competitive devaluations, is a condition in international affairs where countries seek to gain a trade advantage over other countries by causing the exchange rate of their currency to fall in relation to other currencies. As the exchange rate of a country's currency falls, exports become more competitive in other countries, and imports into the country become more and more expensive. Both effects benefit the domestic industry, and thus employment, which receives a boost in demand from both domestic and foreign markets. However, the price increases for import goods are unpopular as they harm citizens' purchasing power; and when all countries adopt a similar strategy, it can lead to a general decline in international trade, harming all countries.
Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who made headlines when he raised the alarm about a currency war in September 2010
As the world's leading Reserve currency, the US dollar was central to the 2010–2011 outbreak of currency war.
Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange (1936). This portrait of a 32-year-old farm-worker with seven children became an iconic photograph symbolising defiance in the face of adversity. A currency war contributed to the worldwide economic hardship of the 1930s Great Depression.
Capital controls are residency-based measures such as transaction taxes, other limits, or outright prohibitions that a nation's government can use to regulate flows from capital markets into and out of the country's capital account. These measures may be economy-wide, sector-specific, or industry specific. They may apply to all flows, or may differentiate by type or duration of the flow.
A widespread system of capital controls were decided upon at the international 1944 conference at Bretton Woods.
The International Finance Centre in Hong Kong would likely oppose capital controls, and argue that they would not work.