China's central bank is set to raise interest rates, the country's Economic Observer said, citing an official it didn't identify at the People's Bank of China's research department. A central bank spokesman denied the report.
The central bank may initially raise the lending rate by 0.5 percentage point and the deposit rate by 0.25 percentage point, the paper said in Beijing. Alternatively, it may keep the deposit rate unchanged and raise the lending rate by 0.25 percentage point, it cited unidentified analysts as saying.
"We won't communicate with the press about any monetary policy change before it is formally released, let alone major policy adjustments like raising interest rates," said Bai Li, a spokesman with the People's Bank of China in Beijing. "We think the information is not very reliable."
China's one-year lending rate of 5.31 percent was last raised in July 1995, while the one-year deposit rate of 1.98 percent was last increased in July 1993.
The government has been trying to slow an economy that expanded a revised 9.8 percent in the first quarter, driven by a 43 percent surge in spending on factories, roads and other fixed assets.
Detailed plans for raising rates at the appropriate time have been submitted, the Observer report said, without giving details.
China's state council, the Cabinet, has to approve all monetary policy changes. The newspaper said it has confirmed from others familiar with the plan that rates are to be raised.
The Beijing-based, Chinese-language Economic Observer is among the country's three main weekly financial newspapers, with the other two being the 21st Century Business Herald and China Business.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decided to shelve proposed legislation that would give elected officials full control over their stipends, saying it would wait for a consensus to be reached before acting. KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) last week proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and the Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Village Chiefs (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例), which would give legislators and councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement. The proposal immediately drew criticism, amid reports that several legislators face possible charges of embezzling fees intended to pay
RSS