China’s state organs to reduce financing costs

Beijing / Bloomberg

China’s main government organs have pledged to tackle overcapacity and reduce financing costs and the debt burden of companies as officials seek to underpin growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Authorities will use multiple liquidity management tools, improve macro-prudential management and keep appropriate liquidity levels and stable money market operations, according to a joint statement issued on Tuesday by agencies including the People’s Bank of China, National Development and Reform Commission and the
Ministry of Finance.
The nation’s communist leaders are seeking to maintain economic growth of at least 6.5 percent a year through 2020 to meet their pledge of creating a “moderately prosperous society.”
The statement comes after Premier Li Keqiang took the nation’s policy makers to task for the way they handled a rout in stocks and the yuan, making him the most senior official to date to fault the response to the
turmoil.
Regulators didn’t respond actively to declines and some even have management problems, Li said in a State Council meeting on Monday, according to a Beijing News report carried on the government’s website.
Li didn’t specify the regulators at fault and defended the decision to intervene in equity and foreign-exchange markets as necessary to head off systemic risks and “defuse some bombs.”