MNI China Press Digest, Feb 22: Monetary Policy, Tax Cuts

     BEIJING (MNI) - The following lists highlights from Friday's China press:

     China still has plenty of room for monetary policy manoeuvre, so there is

little need for large scale QE or asset purchases, the PBOC said in its Q4

Monetary Policy Report published late Thursday. The PBOC also said it will keep

its prudential monetary policy neither too loose or too tight, strengthen

counter-cyclical adjustment, maintain ample liquidity and stabilize market

interest rates in the next step. 

     The PBOC is expected to modestly ease monetary policy by cutting rates and

expanding its balance sheet, having removed the expressions "neutral" monetary

policy and "control the overall money supply" from its latest Monetary Policy

Report, Ming Ming, a former PBOC advisor said in a report. Since Q4 2016, the

PBOC had been using "neutral" to indicate a tighter monetary policy bias, said

Ming in his report.

     China is planning to cut taxes and fees for securities companies, aiming to

lower their operating costs, the Securities Times WeChat edition said. The

consultation published by the Securities Association of China on Thursday to

seek opinion from brokers is aimed at reducing costs for their business

activities, not cutting the stamp duty for A-shares as speculation has

suggested, the paper said.

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

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2225; email: les.commons@marketnews.com

[TOPICS: M$A$$$,M$Q$$$,MBQ$$$]