MNI China Press Digest Oct 22: Policies, Confidence, Guangdong

MNI (BEIJING) - Highlights from Chinese press reports on Tuesday:

• Authorities must enhance policy consistency in the implementation of China’s package of additional policies, which form a systematic deployment aimed at high-quality development, said the Party-run newspaper People’s Daily in a commentary. Officials should not only focus on the scale of fiscal and monetary countercyclical adjustment, which are quantifiable, but also recognise the important role of policies in the fields of employment, industry, investment and consumption, in particular a series of reform measures to boost market confidence, the newspaper said.
• Boosting market confidence is the key to promoting a reasonable recovery in price, which is becoming a top priority, according to an editorial by Yicai.com. The effect of monetary easing has shown a trend of marginal decline since the beginning of the year, as money cannot effectively flow into the real economy through credit expansion amid weak expectations of enterprises and consumers. Additional policies should help repair damaged balance sheets, address overdue corporate accounts, cut taxes and fees, promote the clearing of the real-estate market, and activate home sales, the newspaper said.
• Guangdong province, one of the country's economic powerhouses, registered a 3.4% y/y growth in the first three quarters, 21st Century Business Herald reported. The province’s fixed-asset investment fell 3.4% during this period, but the figure rose 3.5% excluding property investment. Investment in equipment and tools maintained growth of 19.1% amid policies aimed at upgrades. The consumer trade-in programme also helped to drive a 1.9% growth in the sales of household appliances, accelerating 1.7 percentage points from H1, as well as an 8.1% gain in electric-vehicle sales, 4.4 pp higher than H1, the newspaper said.