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Mr. Elting Arnold January 5, 1952 S. Chafkin Open Market Rates in China. In accordance with the request you made of Mr. Stuart, there is attached a schedule of open (black) market rates of exchange in China be- tween Chinese national currency and U. S. dollars from September 1942 through 1945. The schedule is based on information available in our files. Most of the rates provided are for Chungking. In the absence of information on rates in that city for certain months, the exchange rates prevailing at the time in Kunming are given. Shanghai rates are provided for the last three months of 1945 in addition to the Chungking rates for those months. While the schedule appears to give the high-low range of the rates during each month, it should be noted that in fact, information is available in many cases for only part of a particular month, especially during 1942 and 1943. Extreme examples are the Chungking rates given for September and October 1942 which are based on the range of quotations during a single day. On the other hand, a fairly complete series of daily rates is available for the last six months of 1945. Despite the incompleteness of the available data, it is believed that the attached schedule provides an indication of the general direction of the open market rates and an idea of the approximate value of CNC in terms of dollars in the open market during a given month of the period covered. It is hoped that from this standpoint the attached information will be useful for your purposes. I shall be glad to endeavor to supply such additional information on this subject as you may desire. "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE' GOVERNMENT Attachment - SChafkin/ab 1/5/52