MNI China Press Digest Apr 6: Rate Cut, Lockdown, Q1, Spending

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Wednesday:

• The People’s Bank of China should consider cutting medium and long-term interest rates moderately, as the relatively high rates are still dampening longer-term financing especially mortgage lending, the Securities Times reported citing Zeng Gang, deputy director of the National Institution for Finance & Development. Weak credit demand is the core problem constraining credit expansion, said Zeng. More efforts should be made to smoothen the monetary policy transmission mechanism, such as better using government funds to drive private capital in investment, the newspaper cited Zeng as saying.
• Shanghai has had to switch some of its exporting cargo containers to smaller neighboring ports of Ningbo or Nanjing to avoid Covid restrictions imposed at the world’s busiest port, Yicai.com said. Export goods from Shanghai may have fallen as much as 40% recently, the newspaper said citing a shipping executive. Covid measures have also caused supply chain snags and reduced demand for containers, with prices of container shipping to the U.S. west coast down by over 30% from February, it said.
• China’s Q1 GDP may come in at 4-5% amid the impact of Covid-19 outbreaks, the Shanghai Securities News reported citing analysts. Industrial production slowed significantly as the manufacturing PMI contracted to 49.5 while in many places factories were shut, the newspaper said citing Lian Ping, head of Zhixin Investment Research Institute. Infrastructure investment though maintained a rapid growth, supporting an overall 10% growth in fixed-asset investment, said Lian. Consumption even affected by the epidemic can still maintain a positive growth of around 2.0%, Lian added.
• Spending during China’s three-day Qingming Festival holidays that ended on Tuesday plunged 30.9% from a year ago to CNY18.8 billion, about 39.2% of the level seen in 2019, the Securities Times reported citing the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The number of people who undertook trips fell 26.2% to 75 million from last year, or 68% of the level in 2019, it said.