China's money supply expansion
unexpectedly picked up in April and bank lending more than doubled, increasing
pressure on the central bank to rein in liquidity growth.
M2, which includes cash and all deposits, rose 18.9 percent from a year
earlier after gaining 18.8 percent in March, the People's Bank of China said
today on its Web site. Growth was expected to slow to 18.5 percent, according to
the median estimate of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
The central bank raised a benchmark interest rate last month for the first
time since October 2004 to curb surging lending and investment. It may follow up
with additional tightening measures such as forcing banks to set aside more
money as reserves, economists said.
"Liquidity in the banking system is still high and banks still have a strong
incentive to lend," said Qing Wang, a currency strategist with Bank of America
in Hong Kong and a former IMF official. "The central bank needs to take stronger
measures to drain liquidity from the system."
M2 money supply stood at 31.4 trillion yuan ($3.9 trillion) at the end of
April, the report said. It was the 11th straight month that growth topped the
central bank's target. New yuan lending in April rose to 317.2 billion yuan from
142.2 billion yuan.
On April 27, the central bank raised its one-year lending rate by 0.27
percentage point to 5.85 percent, a move it said was aimed at curtailing lending
to investment projects. Investment in factories and real estate jumped 30
percent in the first quarter.
Reserve Requirement
Economists including Wang and Jonathan Anderson at UBS AG expect the People's
Bank of China to raise the percentage of deposits banks must set aside as
reserves, known as the required deposit reserve ratio. Such a move would help
push market interest rates higher, making it more expensive to borrow, they
said.
"The rate hike only makes sense in conjunction with other measures to reduce
liquidity and control lending," Anderson said in a report to clients on April
27. "We still look for some administrative announcements and probably a reserve
requirement hike over the next month."
Money supply is expanding almost twice as fast as the overall economy as a
swelling trade surplus and rising investment from overseas boost currency
inflows.
The surplus in China, the world's third largest trading nation, widened to
$10.5 billion in April from $4.42 billion a year earlier, bringing the total for
the first four months to $33.7 billion. Foreign investment in the first quarter
rose 6.4 percent to $14.3 billion.
Currency Controls
China's foreign-exchange reserves jumped by a third from a year earlier to
$875.1 billion at the end of March, the central bank said last month. The
reserves grew by $200 billion last year, driven by a record $102 billion trade
surplus and $60 billion in foreign investment.
China revalued the yuan in July by 2.1 percent against the dollar, dropping a
decade-old peg and linking its value to a basket of currencies. The yuan has
climbed 1.3 percent against the dollar since then.
To keep the yuan from rising too quickly against the dollar, the central bank
buys foreign currency from the country's commercial banks and exchanges them for
yuan. To prevent those funds entering the economy and fueling inflation, it mops
up the extra liquidity it's created by issuing treasury bills to financial
institutions, a policy known as sterilization.
The central bank in January said it will seek to limit money supply growth to
16 percent this year after allowing expansion to top its 15 percent target for
most of 2005 as it sought to soften the effects of the July revaluation.
