China’s money market rates have fallen sharply amid signs that the government is beginning to ease its tight monetary policy around the edges to keep growth on track.
Premier Wen Jiabao vowed last week to “fine tune” policies, which many analysts said heralded a shift towards a moderate loosening of the monetary straitjacket imposed on the economy over the past year to control inflation.
An indication that the government was delivering on its promise came on Wednesday with a nearly 70 basis point drop in the seven-day repo rate, the steepest decline in three weeks in the country’s most important gauge of interbank liquidity. Moving in tandem, the one-year interest rate swap plumbed a six-month low at 3.37 per cent.