China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan (
"The economy is heading in the direction set in our macroeconomic control campaign, but up to now there is still no apparent easing in the expansion of demand and inflationary pressure," Zhou said in a statement on the bank's Web site.
Zhou made no comment on whether the People's Bank of China planned to increase benchmark interest rates.
Many economists believe there is little doubt that the central bank needs to raise rates -- now at 5.3 percent -- as the bank has warned it might do if inflation surpassed 5 percent. This happened in June, and the consumer price index rose still further to 5.3 percent year-on-year in July, driven largely by a sharp increase in food prices.
Over the past year Beijing has implemented a set of centrally dictated policies aimed at slowing the world's fastest growing major economy, which saw GDP expand 9.7 percent in the first six months of the year.
Zhou added that disciplined bank lending was crucial to keeping the Chinese economy on track.
"China must continue to control the fast increase of middle and long-term loans," Zhou said, adding that "banks must decide their range of middle and long-term loans according to their own financial situations."
He further urged banks to prevent loans from "flowing into blind and copycat investments," and stressed that a rebound in the fast growth in fixed investment had to be stopped.
Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission Liu Mingkang (
Separately, China has cancelled more than 4,800 of the country's nearly 7,000 industrial development zones after an investigation found a variety of illegal transactions, state press reported on Tuesday.
The campaign to rein in corruption and cool investment in the overheated real estate sector found unauthorized development zones covered 24,900km2, or 64.5 percent of the zoned land, the China Daily reported.
The action, spearheaded by the State Council, follows its order to investigate infrastructure projects across the country which had not won official approval or breached development rules, the newspaper said.
It also follows a general tightening on investment over the past 15 months as the government battles to cool China's economy, which continues to show mixed signs of overheating.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
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