China holds firm to US$5 trillion anchor

Different strength: The PBoC balance sheet is a fundamentally different beast from its global peers – run up through years of capital inflows and trade surpluses rather than hoovering up government bonds. — Reuters

BEIJING: Investors who fret about when and how global central banks will run down their crisis-era balance sheets can be relaxed about the biggest of them all – China’s.

Whereas the Federal Reserve’s US$4.5 trillion asset pile is set to be shrunk and the European Central Bank’s should stop growing by the end of this year as the outlook brightens, China’s US$5 trillion hoard is here to stay for the time being – and could even still expand, according to the majority of respondents in a Bloomberg survey of People’s Bank of China (PBoC) watchers.