MNI China Press Digest April 1: Tax Cut, Yuan, Easing, Vaccine

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Thursday:

• China will cut taxes by over CNY550 billion to further support small and micro enterprises, individual businesses and advanced manufacturing, Xinhua News Agency said citing the State Council. Measures would include halving tax rates on small businesses' first CNY1 million of income and raising the threshold of VAT from CNY100,000 monthly sales to CNY150,000, the report said. The government will refund the incremental retention tax credit monthly to advanced manufacturing businesses, including those working in the transportation equipment, electrical machinery, instruments and meters, medicine, and chemical fiber sectors, Xinhua said.
• The yuan exchange rate is likely to be stable in the long term despite losing 1.5% to the dollar in March, the PBOC-owned Financial News reported. The depreciation of the CNY is modest compared with the 2.3% rise in the USD Index, and the yuan has stayed strong against a basket of currencies, the newspaper said citing Zhou Maohua, an analyst with the China Everbright Bank Financial Market Department. The CNY exchange rate is predicted to show a two-way volatility pattern despite recent drastic fluctuations in the overseas market, Zhou said.
• China should avoid withdrawing too soon from policies of fiscal and monetary easing, and should stay on a course of promoting economic growth rather than stabilizing leverage, said Yu Yongding, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, according to a CF40 Forum blog post. The government has other measures to rein in asset prices other than pulling back easing, said Yu. Consumption is still lagging because people tend to increase savings in times of uncertainties, he said.
• China must increase the rate of its vaccination to boost its defence against the Covid-19 virus or it would lose its early advantage and risk falling behind other nations in terms of group immunity, China Central Television reported citing Shao Yiming, an immunologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. China administered 114 million doses of the vaccines in the week through March 30, and its goal is to vaccinate 10 million per day with production reaching 5 billion doses by the end of this year, Shao said.