MNI Press Digest Feb 9: Liquidity, Credit Growth, Biden

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Tuesday:

• The PBOC should ensure interbank liquidity after the holiday period as a slew of business debts, monetary instruments and bonds mature in March and April, the Shanghai Securities News reported. The PBOC has reduced the size of injections due to lower demand for cash and increased fiscal spending before the Lunar New Year holiday, pumping in CNY10 billion on Monday following CNY50 billion on Sunday, the newspaper said.
• China's credit lending in January may have increased to CNY3.5 trillion, an increase of CNY160 billion from a year ago as corporate demand surged, the China Securities Journal reported citing Wang Jingwen, a senior analyst from China Minsheng Bank. Commercial banks were likely to have boosted lending last month as many loans last year were carried over and executed in January, the newspaper wrote citing Li Chao, chief economist from Zheshang Securities. Regulators may have applied marginal tightening to prevent a further rise in macro leverage ratios, so the growth rate of total social financing may have dropped by 0.2 percentage points from the previous month to 13.1%, Li said.
• The Biden administration should abandon the "rude manners" of its predecessor and create new space for the two countries to engage in benign rules-based competition, the Global Times said in an editorial. Responding to President Biden's "extreme competition" remark regarding dealing with China. the editorial said Biden had set a bottom line of avoiding a major power conflict by replacing Trump's approach with international rules. China is not afraid of this approach, the newspaper added.