Author: rmbee

OnJanuary 1st, with the approval of the State Council, the PBCbroadened the floating range of financial institutions’ lending rates. Theupper limit of commercial banks and urban credit cooperatives’ lending rateswas raised to 1.7 times the benchmark lending rate, with that of rural creditcooperatives’ lending rates to 2 times the benchmark lending rate, while thelower limit of financial institutions’ lending rates stayed at 0.9 times thebenchmark lending rate.

ThePBC’s Branch Presidents Conference was held in Beijing on June 17, 2004. With apurpose of fully implementing the guiding principles and policies set by theCPC Central Committee and State Council on macroeconomic management, theconference reviewed the work in the first half of this year, analyzed currenteconomic and financial situation, and laid out the plans to be carried out inthe second half of this year.

Performance of the financial industry remained sound and stable this May, and macro-control policies started to take effect. Growth of money supply and loans moderated though medium and long term loans and foreign currency loans kept on increasing fast; growth of household savings deposits continued to fall; the money market interest rate and the exchange rate of Renminbi remained stable.

InJanuary, the performance of financial industry remained sound and stable.Growth of money supply witnessed large deceleration. RMB loans expanded RMB65.6billion yuan less than last January, and the growth of all types of loans byfinancial institutions continued to decelerate. Corporate deposits declinedmarkedly while household savings deposits grew rapidly. Inter-bank marketwitnessed active transactions and interest rates in the money market sawmoderate rise.

Financial institutions referred to in this table include the People’s Bank of China, policy banks, State-owned commercial banks, other commercial banks, city commercial banks, UCCs, RCCs, rural commercial banks, TICs, financing companies, leasing companies, postal savings institutions and foreign-funded financial institutions.

The StateCouncil has recently appointed new members into the Monetary Policy Committee.The Committee is now chaired by Mr. Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’sBank of China and comprises 12 other members.