BEIJING: China’s central bank kept the policy loan rate unchanged after cutting it in September, as the authorities stay patient in ramping up monetary stimulus.
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) held the interest rate on the one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) steady at 2%, according to a statement yesterday. All of the 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast no change.
China’s economic data showed some early signs of stabilisation last month, after the government rolled out a range of measures from late September to put the economy back on track to hit the government’s growth target of around 5% this year.
In the monthly operation, PBoC offered 900 billion yuan of policy loans via the tool, ending up with a net withdrawal of 550 billion yuan in November after deducting 1.45 trillion yuan of maturities.
“The MLF volume was in line with expectations this month,” said Lynn Song, Greater China chief economist at ING Bank NV.
“The use of the MLF will likely be gradually reduced moving forward given the PBoC’s monetary policy framework reform announced in June.”
China has also been revamping its policy rate framework as it seeks to influence market borrowing costs more effectively.
To do that, it’s using the interest rate on seven-day reverse repurchase agreements as the key anchor while downplaying the role of MLF.
The PBoC has used other liquidity tools in recent months to funnel funds into the financial system, including conducting outright reverse repo and purchases of government bonds.
ING’s Lynn expects the PBoC to cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) in early 2025 rather than the end of this year due to an improvement in recent economic data.
“It’s possible that after the success of September’s monetary policy moves, a RRR cut could be bundled with a rate cut again to send a stronger signal for markets,” Lynn said. — Bloomberg
