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.