September 24, 2024 01:58 GMT
CHINA: PBOC Announces Policy Shifts to Support the Economy.
CHINA
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- China’s central bank announced a series of policy changes aimed at supporting the ailing economy and reaching the government’s 5% growth target.
- Announcing rate cuts and RRR cuts together, PBOC governor Pan Gonsheng addressed the market at unscheduled press conference this morning.
- Governor Pan announced a cut to the short-term interest rate, lowering of mortgage rates and a reduction of the Reserve Requirement Ratio (“RRR”).
- The RRR is to be reduced by 0.50% and is forecast to release up to CNY1trillion of liquidity into the system.
- The 7-day reverse repurchase rate is reduced from 1.7% to 1.5%.
- Additional measures announced are the increase of Core Tier 1 captial at the major commercial banks to strengthen their balance sheets which in turn will support further lending.
- For existing mortgages, mortgage rates will be reduced. For homebuyers, the minimum downpayment amount will be decreased.
- Additional measures designed to support markets include a swap facility that securities firms, funds and insurance companies can access to buy stocks.
- Markets reacted favourably to the news from the PBOC with the CSI 300 and the Shanghai Composite up 1%, bond yields rallied with the 10-year falling 1.5bps to 2.02% with the currency relatively stable.
- There is a lot for markets to digest this morning, but this appears at first glance to be a step in the right direction in helping the property market correct and move forward in attempts to clear the backlog of unsold properties.
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