China has cut the amount of cash that commercial banks must hold on reserve at the central bank, a modest move to ease monetary policy in the wake of signs that the economy is slowing.
The People’s Bank of China will cut the required reserve ratio by 1 percentage point, bringing the ratio for the country’s six largest lenders down to 16 per cent of total deposits, the central bank announced late on Tuesday.
“It’s a very subtle easing signal. Recent data has been pretty weak, including the credit data, but they don’t want to loosen too aggressively at this moment because deleveraging is still the priority,” said Larry Hu, China economist at Macquarie Securities in Hong Kong.