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Ever since Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, promised in October to “pre-emptively fine-tune policy at a suitable time and by an appropriate degree” markets have been waiting for monetary easing to begin, writes Jonathan Wheatley.
In fact it is already under way, in the form of increased lending from China’s state-owned commercial banks and in sharp falls in China’s money market rates. But on Wednesday came the first sign of a lifting of reserve requirements. It has begun with rural banks. More will follow.
The People’s Bank of China – the central bank – said on Wednesday it would cut reserve requirements of 16.5 per cent for 20 rural co-operative banks by 0.5 percentage points this month, Bloomberg reported.
The bank raised the requirement from 16 to 16.5 per cent on November 25 for a year, it said, so the cut is scheduled. But there is more to the timing than this. Inflation fell sharply in October. On Wednesday, China’s preliminary purchasing managers’ index came in at 48 points – anything below 50 means a contraction in spending – its lowest level since March 2009.
Clearly, the world’s second-biggest economy is cooling.
“I wouldn’t blow [Wednesday’s announcement] out of proportion but it is undoubtedly important,” the FT’s Simon Rabinovitch told beyondbrics. “It’s clear that some parts of the country think it is time to ease and it’s now a matter of time before we see reserve requirements cut across the board.”
Mark Williams, Asia economist at Capital Economics, said: “The unexpectedly sharp drop in China’s flash PMI for November, if corroborated by other indicators, is likely to push policymakers to go beyond policy ‘fine-tuning’ to outright easing. Confirmation that the People’s Bank has lowered reserve requirements for some banks is likely to be only the start.”
Perhaps – but don’t necessarily expect a full blown interest rate cut. Cutting reserve requirements amounts almost to the same thing, as Beijing can order commercial banks to increase or rein in lending.
The central bank gave no indication of whether it might cut reserve requirements for the largest commercial banks – although that may come in January.
from:http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001041895/en
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