MNI China Press Digest Feb 16: LPR, Infra Growth, Cmdty Prices

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Wednesday:

• The People’s Bank of China is likely to pause the pace of easing by maintaining its loan prime rate, the Securities Daily reported citing analyst Wang Qing of Golden Credit Rating. LPR is updated on the 20th of each month. The central bank signaled its stable policy intention yesterday by leaving unchanged the rate of renewing both MLF and 7-day reverse repo, the newspaper said citing analyst. China may still conduct marginal easing given its controllable inflation, depending on how the economy and the property market perform, Wang was cited as saying.
• China’s Q1 infrastructure investment may rise by 8% from a year ago given strong fiscal policies backed by CNY1.79 trillion early-issued local government bonds, Yicai.com reported citing researchers. China’s infrastructure investment grew by only 0.4% in 2021, down from 3.8% registered before the pandemic. If China sets a 5.5% growth target this year, infrastructure spending needs to be at least 5.4% higher, Yicai said citing Sheng Songcheng, a former PBOC official. Many local governments have announced their significant projects mainly in transportation and energy, while 5G and data centers are also expected to receive a boost, Yicai said.
• China will continue to guarantee sufficient supply and stabilize the prices of commodities to ease the increasing costs on the downstream business sectors, the State Council said in a meeting on Tuesday chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, according to a readout by Xinhua News Agency. As industries, especially services, face a fragile recovery from the pandemic, the government will continue to reduce fees and taxes for businesses and boost lending to SMEs and financing to manufacturing, the government said.