MNI China Daily Summary: Thursday, May 30

     POLICY: China will steadily improve the operating environment for foreign

financial institutions, reform the administrative approval procedures, and

advance the opening of the financial industry, said Wang Zhaoxing, a vice

chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, at the Annual

Conference of Financial Street Forum 2019 in Beijing today. Globalization is an

"irreversible" historical trend, and countries shall not enact tariff barriers

to block free trade, Wang said.

     POLICY: China's economy is expected to pick up slightly in May after

weaker-than-expected data reported in April, a PBOC advisor told reporters on

the sidelines of the Financial Street Forum conference today. "Growth for the

whole year is likely to stand above 6.2%," said Liu Shijin, a member of the

PBOC's monetary policy committee. He also said China's exports have entered a

low-level growth period, developments depend on how the China-U.S. trade talks

go, noting negotiation could resume.

     LIQUIDITY: The People's Bank of China (PBOC) injected CNY30 billion via

7-day reverse repos, resulting in a net injection of CNY30 billion as no reverse

repos matured today, according to Wind Information. This will keep the liquidity

in the banking system at a reasonable and ample level, the PBOC said.

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

institutions (DR007) fell to 2.3000% from Wednesday's close of 2.8010%, Wind

Information showed. The overnight repo average decreased to 1.5500% from

Wednesday's 2.4714%.

     YUAN: The yuan strengthened to 6.9051 against the dollar from Wednesday's

close of 6.9100. The PBOC set the dollar-yuan central parity rate at 6.8990,

compared with Wednesday's 6.8988.

     BONDS: The yield on 10-year China Government Bond was last at 3.2750%, down

from the close of 3.2900 on Wednesday, according to Wind Information.

     STOCKS: The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.31% to 2905.81. Hong

Kong's Hang Seng Index decreased 0.44% to 27,114.88.

     FROM THE PRESS: Some U.S. politicians have been blinded by the idea of

"America First" and developed trade protectionism, unilateralism, and

arbitrarily launched the tariff war, completely disregarding the strong

opposition of both the Chinese and American citizens, the People's Daily said in

an op-ed piece today. China urges these politicians to stop stubbornly insisting

on their own ideas, and listen to the voices of the U.S. society and the

criticisms and warnings from other countries, the newspaper said.

     Foreign investors continue to buy Chinese commercial properties betting on

a pick-up in the Chinese economy, the 21st Century Business Herald reported

today. The amount of investment has exceeded CNY53 billion in Q1, of which 50%

comes from overseas, the highest proportion in a quarter since 2016, the

newspaper said. Foreign investors including Blackstone, Capital and and GAW

Capital have invested over CNY40 billion in Chinese commercial real estate by

end-April, the newspaper reported.

     President Donald Trump's trade policies are damaging the U.S. stock market,

economic growth and technology companies' profits while creating monetary policy

uncertainties, as well as disrupting the global financial markets and world

economy, the Securities Times said in a commentary today.

--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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