On September 6, Hu Chunhua, China’s Vice Premier of the State Council, said during his trip to northeast Heilongjiang province that ensuring the supply of pork is one of the most urgent tasks of the current agricultural work. Hu mandated that all production areas accomplish the task of ensuring a stable production and supply “one hundred percent,” and that they clean up improper practices in raising pigs.

In the past six months, after the outbreak of African swine fever in China, the retail price of pork soared. This led to a rise in the price of food and other livelihood products. At present, it is a “significant major political task” to restore pig production and stabilize pork prices.

Heilongjiang province is one of China’s main pig production areas. Hu Chunhua was inspecting pig slaughtering and processing companies and breeding bases in Mudanjiang city on September 6. Hu was there to learn about the main problems facing pig production, the demands from farmers and firms, and the impact of the African swine fever epidemic.

Source: Central News Agency, September 7, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201909070053.aspx

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced on Friday, September 6, that it would lower the reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions by 0.5 percent, effective September 16. China’s central bank said the move was to support the real economy and reduce social financing costs. The reserve requirement ratio is the minimum amount of reserves that must be held by a commercial bank.

In addition, the PBOC will lower the reserve ratio of 1 percent for the urban commercial banks. These measures are to be implemented on October 15 and November 15, respectively, with a 0.5 percent reduction each time. In other words, the PBOC will have successively lowered the reserve ratio for urban commercial banks three times, with a total reduction of 1.5 percent.

It is estimated that this round of ratio reductions will release funds of 900 billion yuan ($126 billion).

Earlier this year, the PBOC already implemented two rounds of reductions: a comprehensive ratio reduction of 0.5 percent in January and another 0.5 percent reduction for small and medium-sized banks between May and July.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 6, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/bank-09062019112953.html

On August 10, 2019, at a 40 person forum on China’s financial system, Zhou Xiaochuan, the former Chairman of China’s People’s Bank, stated that trade protectionism, the development of modern technology, and currency-based economic sanctions have caused significant twists in the global market system.

Zhou pointed out that the first global market twist came from trade conflicts between countries. A trade war can last a long time and cause obvious twists in the distribution of global resources.

The second one is due to the development of technology. Some IT companies pursue a “winner takes all” or “winner takes the biggest share” result. They therefore burn a tremendous amount of money to claim that market share and increase traffic. Zhou suggested fair competition as the solution.

The third one is that the U.S., due to its control of the U.S. dollar, uses currency as its means to impose economic sanctions. Zhou argued that the globalization of the Renminbi will solve this problem.

Source: Sina, August 11, 2019
https://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bank/yhpl/2019-08-11/doc-ihytcern0062585.shtml