BEIJING, Sept 25 – China’s top financial regulators, in a move that went beyond market expectations, unveiled a potent combination of monetary easing measures on Tuesday, aimed at anchoring market confidence and underpinning economic recovery amid domestic and global headwinds, ChinaDaily reported quoting analysts.
The forceful one-two punch, including cutting the reserve requirement ratio, key policy interest rates and existing mortgage loan interest rates, will foster a more enabling climate for the world’s second-largest economy to hit this year’s growth target, they added.
“Recent macroeconomic data pointing to a tepid recovery in domestic consumption and weak inflationary pressures have created space for policymakers to ramp up efforts to bolster the economy,” said Ming Ming, chief economist at CITIC Securities.
“The gradual release of the policy package will help shore up market sentiment, unleash pent-up consumer demand, and drive a pickup in prices, putting the economy on a more favorable growth trajectory,” he added.
Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People’s Bank of China, the nation’s central bank, said at a news conference on Tuesday that the reserve requirement ratio — the amount of cash that banks are required to have on hand — will be reduced by 0.5 percentage point in the near term, which will free up about 1 trillion yuan ($142.2 billion) for new lending.
This marks the second time that the central bank has lowered the RRR this year, after implementing a 0.5 percentage point reduction in February, indicating that Chinese policymakers are proactively tapping into the policy space provided by the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut last week, experts said.
Following the latest reduction, the average reserve ratio for the banking sector will drop to around 6.6 percent. This level still leaves considerable flexibility to further lower the RRR if needed, when compared with other major global economies, Pan said.
China’s central bank will not shy away from further RRR cuts of 0.25 to 0.5 percentage point this year, depending on the prevailing market liquidity conditions, Pan added.
