China’s regulators pledged to boost efforts to stabilize the housing and equity markets, as well as conduct more effective fiscal policies, in the wake of a meeting of top leaders that called for greater stimulus.
The government would promote the recovery of the property market through measures such as increasing demand and controlling the supply of land for new development, China News Service reported, citing Chinese Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Dong Jianguo (董建國) at a conference on Saturday.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission said it would enhance market monitoring for futures and spot trading, and strengthen supervision of margin trading, derivatives and quantitative trading, according to a statement on its Web site.
Photo: REUTERS
The Chinese Ministry of Finance said it would implement more effective and sustained fiscal policies next year, as well as improve macroeconomic regulations.
The government would also increase the issuance and usage of local government special bonds and expand their investment areas, according to a statement on its Web site.
The comments come after officials led by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) vowed to raise the fiscal deficit target next year following a two-day huddle of the Chinese Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing. For only the second time in at least a decade, they made “lifting consumption vigorously” and stimulating overall domestic demand their top priority.
China’s struggling economy has rebounded modestly in recent weeks on the back of more government support, with signs of improvement in consumption and factory activity.
However, overall confidence remains frail because policies have not been strong enough to free the economy from deflation.
In a sign of the challenges facing policymakers, China’s credit expansion unexpectedly slowed last month, figures showed on Friday. Loans extended to the real economy, which exclude those issued to financial institutions, fell to the lowest for the month of November since 2009. That offset elevated government bond issuance to drag down overall credit growth.
More easing is on the cards. China would cut interest rates and the reserve requirement ratio in a timely manner next year, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Saturday, citing Wang Xin (王信), director of the research bureau under the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
The central bank would increase the intensity of monetary and credit supply, Wang said at an event on Saturday, according to the report. Financing conditions for the real economy would also be relaxed further, it cited Wang as saying.
The comments came days after the Chinese politburo pledged to embrace a “moderately loose” monetary policy next year.
The central bank would also improve how it manages exchange rate expectations and guard against any shocks next year, a senior official said.
The PBOC would “step up expectation management on exchange rates and vigorously respond to external shocks,” the monetary policy department head Zou Lan (鄒瀾) told state media in an interview published on Friday.
In addition, the central bank would “resolutely prevent risks of overshooting in the exchange rate,” he said.
The yuan has fallen sharply since mid-October and slid on Thursday after a media report said authorities were considering letting it depreciate in response to the threat of a trade war with the US.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary