The Monetary Policy Committee of the PBC held the 3rdQuarterly Meeting of 2003 in Beijing recently.
It was agreed in the meeting that, despite variousdifficulties, the Chinese economy had maintained the rapid growth momentumduring the first three quarters of this year. The PBC carried out soundmonetary policy, strengthened open market operations and employed variousmonetary policy instruments including raising reserve requirement ratio by 1percentage point to keep money supply and credit grow in a steady way. Atend-August, balance of broad money (M2) increased by 21.6 percent year-on-yearto RMB21 trillion yuan, and RMB loans of all financial institutions grew byRMB2.1680 trillion yuan from end-2002 to RMB15.3 trillion yuan, RMB1.1025trillion yuan more than the expansion recorded for the first eight months of2002.
The Committee had in-depth review of thecurrent economic and financial development both at home and abroad. It wasagreed that the good momentum of economic and financial development should bemaintained. Although some new developments emerged in current economicoperation needed to be further examined, growth of money supply and credit wasfaster than desired, which could possibly lead to low-quality economic growthand worsen structural problems, thereby damping the sustainable and healthydevelopment of economy.
It was emphasized that commercial banks should makeefforts to prevent new credit risks, further improve loan structure, strengthenliquidity management, and steadily promote various reforms, includingstrengthening internal control mechanism and corporate governance. It was alsoagreed that capital markets should be developed to diversify market productsand to improve monetary policy transmission.
The Committee discussed monetary policy and measuresto be adopted in the period ahead and concurred that the sound monetary policyshould be preserved and various monetary policy instruments be flexibly employedto ensure steady growth of aggregate money supply and credit and the continuityof the recent policy guidance. It was also agreed that, according to thecurrent economic development both at home and abroad, basic stability of theRMB deposit and loan interest rates should be maintained, and market-basedinterest rate reform should be steadily advanced. In addition, the RMB exchangerate should be basically kept stable and the formation mechanism of RMBexchange rate improved to promote the equilibrium of the balance of payments.
The meeting was chaired by Mr. Zhou Xiaochuan,Governor of the PBC and Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee, and joinedby other Committee members including Mr. Zhu Zhixin, Mr. Li Yong, Mme. WuXiaoling, Mr. Li Ruogu, Mr. Li Deshui, Mr. Guo Shuqing, Mr. Liu Mingkang, Mr.Shang Fulin, Mr. Wu Dingfu, Mr. Xiao Gang, Mr. Li Yang. Presidents of the PBCbranches in Shenyang, Tianjin and Nanjing also attended the meeting.