MNI China Daily Summary: Friday, March 21
LIQUIDITY: The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted CNY93 billion via 7-day reverse repos, with the rate unchanged at 1.50%. The operation led to a net drain of CNY87.7 billion after offsetting the maturity of CNY180.7 billion today, according to Wind Information.
RATES: The seven-day weighted average interbank repo rate for depository institutions (DR007) fell to 1.7688% from 1.8419% on Thursday, Wind Information showed. The overnight repo average decreased to 1.7499% from 1.7730%.
YUAN: The currency weakened to 7.2489 against the dollar from 7.2383 on Thursday. The PBOC set the dollar-yuan central parity rate higher at 7.1760, compared with 7.1754 set on Thursday. The fixing was estimated at 7.2433 by Bloomberg survey today.
BONDS: The yield on 10-year China Government Bonds was last at 1.8700%, up from Thursday's close of 1.8550%, according to chinamoney.com.cn.
STOCKS: The Shanghai Composite Index was down 1.29% to 3,364.83, while the CSI300 index fell 1.52% to 3,914.70. The Hang Seng Index declined 2.19% at 23,689.72.
FROM THE PRESS: Land auction sales in core Chinese cities are heating up as real-estate developers become increasingly confident in new home sales, according to Cao Jingjing, general manager at the China Index Academy. The Securities Daily cited a recent residential plot sale in Zhengzhou selling at a 87.5% premium after 255 rounds of bidding and noted 12 of the 16 plots sold in Hangzhou went for above asking price, including several more than 40% above.
China will further open up its service sector and match international rules to boost services trade, said Premier Li Qiang, during a Fujian province visit. Beijing will increase efforts to attract and stabilise foreign investment and improve the business environment to support foreign-funded companies better, Li said. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
The People’s Bank of China is expected to cut policy interest rates in Q2 while considering changes in the real-estate market, trade environment and price trends, Securities Daily reported, citing Wang Qing, an analyst at Golden Credit Rating. Wang said a policy cut would guide down Loan Prime Rate quotations, which have remained unchanged for five months. However LPR levels could still fall independent of policy cuts, Wang added. One-year and five-year LPR currently stand at 3.1% and 3.6%.