MNI China Press Digest Mar 28: Stable Market, US Audit, Covid

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Monday:

• China should urgently introduce policies to stabilize market expectations and increase control over cross-border capital flow, the Securities Times said in a front-page editorial. The spread between 10-year China and U.S. treasury yields has rapidly narrowed to 31 bps, below the 40-bps "comfort zone," as the market expects more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve to control inflation. A narrower spread pressures the yuan and causes capital outflow, the newspaper said. China should nonetheless stick to its own policies and introduce a loosening monetary environment to promote economic growth, it said. Foreign holdings of Chinese stocks and bonds are limited and not enough to impact the overall market, it said.
• China and U.S. regulators are working “in the same direction” to meet the U.S. side’s audit requirement on overseas-listed Chinese companies, the China Securities Journal said citing people close to the Chinese securities regulator. The China Securities Regulatory Commission on Sunday held a video meeting with some U.S.-listed Chinese companies and investors to seek their input, the newspaper said. The regulator denied some previous media reports on the issue as “subjective speculation,” the newspaper said without identifying the reports.
• Shanghai will seal off residential communities and suspend public transportation for mass nucleic testing for four days in the city's eastern half beginning on Monday, after the city registered the highest daily number of new cases in the national Covid-19 tally, said the Global Times. Other than essential services, all companies are to ask employees to work from home, the newspaper said. The western half of the city will be sealed off for another four days starting April 1 for a partitioned nucleic acid testing approach, seeking to achieve "dynamic zero" cases quickly, the newspaper added.
• China’s industrial profits rose 5% in the first two months of this year, up from a 4.2% increase y/y in December, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics issued on Sunday. However, corporates are facing rising costs of production and declining profit margins, with production facing significant difficulties, Zhu Hong, the bureau’s senior statistician said in an analysis. China’s manufacturing faces more challenges as the prices of raw materials rose, while Covid lockdowns have forced some factories to halt production.