Chinese banks cut their benchmark lending rates after easing by the central bank at the end of September, part of a series of measures aimed at reviving economic growth and halting a housing market slump, Bloomberg News reported. The one-year loan prime rate was lowered to 3.10% from 3.35%, while the five-year LPR was reduced to 3.60% from 3.85%.
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China’s economy slowed in the third quarter, a deceleration that highlights the urgency of Beijing’s recent pivot toward greater support for growth after months of hesitancy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Investors’ initial euphoria over Beijing’s weekslong barrage of stimulus measures and messages of reassurance has faded, however, as doubts have crept in over just how effective any planned stimulus will be at revving up the ailing economy and bringing a festering property crisis to a close.
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The United States will use restrictive tools like tariffs to push back against China's practice of making far more goods than it needs in order to dominate global markets, White House official Daleep Singh said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the Asian giant has amassed growing market power that it uses for economic and geopolitical leverage, and Washington viewed the costs as unacceptable. "So that's the problem, and it's not abstract.
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China’s policymakers rolled out fresh stimulus aimed at boosting the country’s sluggish property sector, though the measures fell short of hopes for more specific liquidity support, the Wall Street Journal reported. Authorities plan to fast-track credit for struggling property developers, and aim to renovate 1 million apartments in so-called urban shantytowns, a strategy used during the prior real-estate slump, the housing ministry and other policymakers said Thursday at a highly anticipated press conference.
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With China’s economy sinking deeper into a funk last month, Xi Jinping finally decided something had to be done. After resisting calls to take forceful steps to prop up the economy for two years, Xi relented in late September and ordered a barrage of interest-rate cuts and other measures to put a floor under growth. But Xi didn’t give his economic mandarins a blank check.
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The Chinese government’s flurry of stimulus measures has upended the country’s stock markets. It has also brought potential home buyers back into the marketplace, raising hopes that official attempts at boosting confidence can rekindle a sector critical to any lasting rebound, the Wall Street Journal reported. Home viewings and sales of new and previously owned homes jumped in China’s biggest cities during the recently concluded weeklong National Day holiday, state media reported, while rising more modestly in lower-income cities.
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China’s exports slowed sharply in September as global demand weakened, adding to worries over how to recharge growth in the world’s second-largest economy, the Associated Press reported. Exports rose 2.4% in dollar terms from a year earlier last month, down from 8.7% year-on-year growth in August, the Chinese customs office reported Monday. Imports rose just 0.3% in September. China recorded a trade surplus of $81.7 billion in September, down from $91 billion in August. China’s leaders have been struggling to rev up the economy since the COVID-19 pandemic ended. The U.S.
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China’s central bank is moving ahead with a 500-billion-yuan swap facility to let securities, fund and insurance firms get liquid assets for their stock purchases, the Wall Street Journal reported. The establishment of the roughly $70.60 billion facility is part of a broader stimulus package introduced late last month by People’s Bank of China Gov. Pan Gongsheng to revive the country’s struggling economy.
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After a late-September burst of policy announcements about economic revival and a news conference Tuesday to tout them, the Chinese stock-market roller coaster took a plunge on Wednesday. Beijing’s answer: plans for another news conference, the Wall Street Journal reported. This time, officials said that they were going to talk about “intensifying fiscal policy.” Analysts said that unless the message was reassuring, more wild turns were likely to follow.
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China said it’s confident in reaching its economic targets this year and promised to further support growth, although it held back in unleashing more major stimulus in a disappointment to investors looking for more fuel for a world-beating stock rally, Bloomberg News reported. Officials in the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s economic planning agency, said Tuesday they would speed up spending while largely reiterating plans to boost investment and increase direct support for low-income groups and new graduates.
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