Central bank raises key lending rate
By Zheng Lifei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-28 06:21
The auto industry will be next, He Yanli, a vice-director at the National
Development and Reform Commission, told Dow Jones Newswires yesterday.
Car sales in the first three months this year rose 74 per cent from the same
period a year earlier to 890,000 units, Xinhua News Agency reported earlier this
month, citing data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Fuelled by growing lending and a swelling trade surplus, China's money
supply, or M2 a broad measure of cash in circulation and in deposits climbed
18.8 per cent on a year-on-year basis to 31.1 trillion yuan (US$3.9 trillion) at
the end of March.
Outstanding local currency loans in all financial institutions topped 20.6
trillion yuan (US$2.6 trillion) during the same period, up 14.7 per cent on a
yearly basis.
"The lending rate hike is aimed at maintaining the sound
momentum of the continuous, co-ordinated and healthy economic growth," the
central bank said in the statement posted on its website.
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