MNI China Daily Summary: Thursday, April 30

     BEIJING (MNI) - POLICY: China will strengthen co-operations among the

government, banks and insurance companies to expand insurance policy-backed

financing to help SMEs involved in foreign trade obtain loans, spokesman Gao

Feng of the Ministry of Commerce said at a briefing on Thursday. The China

Export & Credit Insurance Corp. should increase risk tolerance, reduce premiums,

optimize settlement service, and help SMEs to reduce losses, said Gao.

     DATA: China's manufacturing Purchasing Manager Index (PMI) fell to 50.8 in

April from 52 in March though remained in the above-50 expansionary zone. The

wide fluctuation was caused by the abnormalities of the virus-hit economy and

the data indicated manufacturing continued to improve, the National Bureau of

Statistics said today.

     LIQUIDITY: The People's Bank of China (PBOC) skipped open market operations

for the fifth day, leaving liquidity unchanged, according to Wind Information.

Liquidity in the banking system is reasonable and ample, the PBOC said on its

website.

     RATES: The 7-day weighted average interbank repo rate for depository

institutions (DR007) rose to 1.9080% from Wednesday's close 1.6101%, data by

Wind Information showed. The overnight repo average increased to 1.8450% from

the previous 0.6626%.

     YUAN: The currency strengthened to 7.0519 against the dollar from

Wednesday's 7.0748 close. PBOC set the dollar-yuan central parity rate lower at

7.0571, compared with 7.0704 set on Wednesday and the highest since April 15.

     BONDS: The yield on 10-year China Government Bonds was last at 2.5125%, up

from Wednesday's close of 2.4775%, according to Wind Information.

     STOCKS: The Shanghai Composite Index rallied 1.33% to 2,860.08. Hong Kong's

Hang Seng Index gained 0.28% to 24,643.59.

     FROM THE PRESS: The resumption of production and work in China's Hubei

province, the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, should be accelerated with

a focus on pillar industries such as automobile manufacturing, electronic

information, new materials, and biomedicine, Xinhua News Agency reported

following the meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee late Wednesday. The

provincial government should also help solve difficulties faced by private and

small companies, and speed up infrastructure building including 5G networks,

Xinhua reported. 

     China will start a new round of policies to support enterprises, focusing

on the stability of the supply chain, the Economic Information Daily reported.

Government measures should ensure the flow of labour, logistics, capital and

data in the industrial chain, increase coordination between different industries

and regions, and also expand demand, the newspaper said citing Zhu Keli,

executive dean of the New Economic Research Institute of the Development

Research Centre of the State Council.

     Chinese banking regulators may extend deadlines of mortgage and credit card

payments, the 21st Century Business Herald reported citing a senior executive of

a large state-owned bank. Instances of overdue mortage payments, credit cards

and consumer loans have all risen in March, the newspaper said. By the end of

March, the overdue mortgage rate at the China Merchants Bank rose 0.27

percentage points from end-2019 to 0.6%, the newspaper said. 

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 (10) 8532-5998; email: wanxia.lin@marketnews.com

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 10 8532 5998; email: william.bi@mni-news.com

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