BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- New home prices ceased growing in most of 70 major Chinese cities in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Sunday.
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Showing posts with label NBS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NBS. Show all posts
Home prices in most Chinese cities stop growing in Feb.
14/06 China hikes bank reserve ratio for 6th time this year to battle inflation
| English.news.cn 2011-06-14 15:46:51 |
BEIJING, June 14 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank Tuesday said it would raise the banks' reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 50 basis points for sixth time this year, a move aimed to withdraw liquidity out of the market as inflation remains stubbornly high.
The latest rise, effective on June 20, means banks have to set aside 21.5 percent of their capital in reserve, a record high. Analysts estimate it will freeze capital worth about 370 billion yuan (56.92 billion U.S. dollars).
The move came as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported a 5.5 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in May, a 34 month high.
The government would continue to prioritize easing prices in its macro regulation, since the pressure from price increases remained hefty, NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a press conference on Tuesday.
"Excess money supply is the main reason behind the high CPI reading.Therefore, the RRR increase would work to prevent further prices increase," said Yang Ruilong, an economic professor with Renmin University.
In addition, with the end of the central bank's previous phase of open market operation and the inflow of foreign exchange, nearly 1 trillion yuan of liquidity will enter the market in June, according to an estimation by Lian Ping, chief economist with the Bank of Communication.
The expected inflow of liquidity was the reason behind the latest hike, Lian said.
To soak up liquidity, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has raised the RRR once a month over the past six months. It also twice hiked the benchmark lending and deposit rates.
The tightening measures have begun to show effects, as the new bank lending, an important indicator of the monetary policy, tumbled to 551.6 billion yuan in May from April's 739.6 billion yuan. It was also 100.5 billion yuan less than that of last May, according to PBOC data released on Monday.
The broad money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, hit 76.34 trillion yuan by the end of May, up 15.1 percent year-on-year, the slowest growth since November of 2008.
The tightening measures, however, have dealt a heavy blow to the nation's small businesses who find it increasingly difficult to get bank loans.
Mid and small sized banks, which focus on lending to small businesses, have to set aside 18.5 percent of their capital in reserve after the latest RRR rise.
Shrinking overseas orders and rising costs of labor and raw materials have also exacerbated the conditions faced by small businesses, which are the biggest supplier of jobs in China.
"If the situation continues, it would hurt jobs and the economy outlook," Yang Ruilong said.
To minimize the monetary tightening's negative impacts on small firms, the nation's banking regulator has mandated a lower non-performing loan (NPL) requirement for them to boost lending.
A loan of less than 5 million yuan to a small enterprise will be viewed as retail lending, which brings less interest-rate risks compared with wholesale loans, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said on June 7.
The latest increase was the 12th since the start of last year, which underscored the continuation of the prudent monetary policy, analysts said.
They also said the central bank should deal with the monetary tightening in a more flexible way to prevent a drastic economic cool-down.
Zhang Xiaojing, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, estimated CPI growth would decelerate in the latter half of this year, as food prices which had pushed up CPI would drop as the severe drought in south China was over. He also expected CPI growth to peak in June.
Guo Tianyong, a professor with the Central China Finance University, said the economic growth would not slow to below the target of 8 percent.
"It is too early to talk about relaxing the monetary policy before inflation is fundamentally curbed," Guo said.
Related:
BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua) -- China's recent interest rate hikes may soon come to an end, but another rate increase is still possible before the end of this month, according to Lian Ping, chief economist for the Bank of Communications.
Full story BEIJING, June 3 (Xinhua) -- The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, reiterated Friday it would continue to implement a prudent monetary policy this year.
The central bank will measure the financial sector's support for the country's economy by the indicator -- total social financing, it said in an abstract of 2011 China Financial Stability Report posted on its website on Friday. Full story
Editor: An |
09/03 China raises statistics criteria for economic indicators
Xinhua News Agency, March 9, 2011
China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday announced adjustments to the decade-old method it uses to measure the country's production and investment indicators, saying the changes would help improve the accuracy and timeliness of statistical data.
Beginning January this year, China had revised up the statistical threshold of "large-scale" industrial enterprises to measure only those with an annual business income above 20 million yuan (3.04 million U.S. dollars), from the previous 5 million yuan (about 761,000 U.S. dollars), when compiling industrial production data, the NBS said in a statement on its website.
For fixed-asset investment data, China will survey projects with total investments of more than 5 million yuan, up from the previous 500,000 yuan, while bringing projects in rural areas into the statistical count, NBS said.
Enterprises that are above the new statistical criteria will be surveyed one-by-one, while those under-criteria companies will be calculated by sample surveys, NBS added.
The previous monthly economic indicator of "urban fixed-asset investment" has been replaced by "fixed-asset investment (excluding rural household investment)" to include those investments in rural areas, according to NBS.
"The revisions are important moves by the statistics departments to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of statistical data in accordance with the new changes in our country's economy," the statement said.
Further, the State Council, or China's Cabinet, has approved the revisions in statistical criteria, according to the statement.
NBS had used the current methods to measure China's key economic indicators since 1998 when the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was only 7.9748 trillion yuan, compared with 39.8 trillion yuan (6.05 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2010.
According to NBS data, the number of projects with fixed-asset investments of more than 500,000 yuan jumped to 661,000 in 2010 from 159,000 in 1997 when the previous statistical criteria was first applied.
Meanwhile, the number of large-scale enterprises with their annual business incomes above 5 million yuan more than tripled to 434,000 from 165,000 in 1998 when China began using the previous statistical method.
"Though the number of fixed-asset investment projects was down using the revised criteria, the impact on the total investment volume figure was limited," said an NBS spokesman.
Using the new 5 million-yuan criteria to calculate the fixed-asset investment indicator, the project number was down by 23.5 percent, though the total investments dipped only by less than 2 percent, said the spokesman.
For measurement of industrial production indicators, the 20 million-yuan new statistical criteria reduced the number of targeted enterprises by 40.6 percent in 2009, but the country's industrial value-added output growth data was down by only 2 percent, business income data down 3.4 percent, assets down 5.5 percent and profits down only 1.3 percent, according to NBS.
NBS is due to publish the two indicators and other key economic data, such as consumer price index, producer price index, retail sales figures and industrial value-added output growth for February on Friday.
China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday announced adjustments to the decade-old method it uses to measure the country's production and investment indicators, saying the changes would help improve the accuracy and timeliness of statistical data.
Beginning January this year, China had revised up the statistical threshold of "large-scale" industrial enterprises to measure only those with an annual business income above 20 million yuan (3.04 million U.S. dollars), from the previous 5 million yuan (about 761,000 U.S. dollars), when compiling industrial production data, the NBS said in a statement on its website.
For fixed-asset investment data, China will survey projects with total investments of more than 5 million yuan, up from the previous 500,000 yuan, while bringing projects in rural areas into the statistical count, NBS said.
Enterprises that are above the new statistical criteria will be surveyed one-by-one, while those under-criteria companies will be calculated by sample surveys, NBS added.
The previous monthly economic indicator of "urban fixed-asset investment" has been replaced by "fixed-asset investment (excluding rural household investment)" to include those investments in rural areas, according to NBS.
"The revisions are important moves by the statistics departments to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of statistical data in accordance with the new changes in our country's economy," the statement said.
Further, the State Council, or China's Cabinet, has approved the revisions in statistical criteria, according to the statement.
NBS had used the current methods to measure China's key economic indicators since 1998 when the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was only 7.9748 trillion yuan, compared with 39.8 trillion yuan (6.05 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2010.
According to NBS data, the number of projects with fixed-asset investments of more than 500,000 yuan jumped to 661,000 in 2010 from 159,000 in 1997 when the previous statistical criteria was first applied.
Meanwhile, the number of large-scale enterprises with their annual business incomes above 5 million yuan more than tripled to 434,000 from 165,000 in 1998 when China began using the previous statistical method.
"Though the number of fixed-asset investment projects was down using the revised criteria, the impact on the total investment volume figure was limited," said an NBS spokesman.
Using the new 5 million-yuan criteria to calculate the fixed-asset investment indicator, the project number was down by 23.5 percent, though the total investments dipped only by less than 2 percent, said the spokesman.
For measurement of industrial production indicators, the 20 million-yuan new statistical criteria reduced the number of targeted enterprises by 40.6 percent in 2009, but the country's industrial value-added output growth data was down by only 2 percent, business income data down 3.4 percent, assets down 5.5 percent and profits down only 1.3 percent, according to NBS.
NBS is due to publish the two indicators and other key economic data, such as consumer price index, producer price index, retail sales figures and industrial value-added output growth for February on Friday.
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