MNI China Press Digest June 30: PBOC, Bonds, Domestic Travel

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Thursday:

• The People’s Bank of China will increase the intensity of prudent monetary policy, focusing on stabilising prices and safeguarding employment, the 21st Century Business Herald reported citing a statement on the central bank website following the Q2 meeting of the PBOC’s Monetary Policy Committee. Compared to the Q1 meeting, the PBOC’s new emphasis is to stabilise employment and prices and ensuring economic development, the newspaper said. The PBOC will boost overall demand via aggregate policies, while increasing support for key areas and weak links through structural tools, the newspaper said citing Wen Bin, chief economist of Minsheng Bank.
• The sales of Chinese local government bonds in June is expected to reach a single-month record high of CNY1.93 trillion, in a bid to help stabilise the economy, the China Securities Journal reported. The weekly issuance had exceeded CNY500 billion over the past three weeks, which is rare, the newspaper said citing analysts. So far this year, a total CNY5.25 trillion of local government bonds have been issued, the newspaper said. For H2, policymakers should consider front-loading some quota of next year’s local government special bonds to this year, as Minister of Finance Liu Kun previously pledged to plan incremental policies and intensify macro policies, the newspaper said citing analysts.
• China removed the asterisk mark in its travel code which was used to flag people who have been, or even just passed by a mid- or high-risk cities or areas in the past 14 days, so to facilitate domestic travel, Yicai reported citing a statement from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday. The search volume of air tickets on the online travel platform Qunar increased by 60% within 30 minutes following the new rule, while that of hotels doubled, and that of train tickets rose by up to 1.5 times, the newspaper said citing data by Qunar. However, residents in medium and high-risk areas still need to follow the travel restrictions and quarantine requirements unified nationwide, the newspaper said.