BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The People's Bank of
China (PBOC) on Thursday announced it might use a variety of measures, including
bank and treasury bond issues and reserve ratio requirements, to control the
country's "severe" liquidity problem.
A PBOC report gave no details about the extent of the
measures or when or how they would be implemented, but it stressed that
absorbing liquidity in banks and strengthening credit control could not
fundamentally tackle the constant and rapid accumulation of liquidity and other
structural problems.
"These measures can only create a steady monetary and
financial environment for China's economic growth and win time for restructuring
and reform," said the central bank's Third Quarter Report of the Implementation
of the Monetary Policies.
Excessive growth in investment, the trade surplus and
credit remained the prominent problems of the Chinese economy.
"China still faces severe situations on liquidity....
The role of price levers will be strengthened while the use of interest rates
and exchange rates policies will be more coordinated so as to stabilize
inflation anticipation," it said.
The report identified the immediate reason for excess
domestic liquidity as the continuous surplus of international payments, but also
pointed to deep-seated structural problems, such as the high saving ratio
accompanied by low consumption.
The report also revealed that bank savings are
shifting from term accounts to current accounts, although the saving inclination
among local residents picked up slightly after interest rate hikes, interest tax
cuts and rising risks on the capital market.
PBOC figures show the third quarter aggregate
deposits on individual accounts were 213 billion yuan (about 28.55 billion U.S.
dollars) less than the second quarter.
In the first nine months, the balance of deposits in
Renminbi rose 6.9 percent over the same period of last year to 17.2 trillion
yuan (2.3 trillion U.S. dollars). The growth was 9.2 percentage points lower
than the same period of last year. Both current and demand accounts have seen
less increase in deposits from a year earlier.
The total balance of deposits in Renminbi and other
currencies by all financial institutions amounted to 39.5 trillion yuan
(5.29trillion U.S. dollars), up 16 percent over the same period of last year.
The rise was 0.4 of a percentage point lower than the same period of last
year.