ADVERTISEMENT

China Follows Fed in Tightening, Though Makes Smaller Moves

China’s central bank unexpectedly raised borrowing costs following Fed’s decision to tighten monetary policy.

China Follows Fed in Tightening, Though Makes Smaller Moves
Pedestrians walk past the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) headquarters in Beijing. (Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- China’s central bank edged borrowing costs higher after the Federal Reserve’s decision to tighten monetary policy.

Hours after the Fed’s quarter percentage-point move, the People’s Bank of China increased the rates it charges in open-market operations and on its medium-term lending facility, though making smaller adjustments than the U.S. central bank. China also boosted rates on another policy tool, the standing lending facility, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named as they’re not authorized to talk to media.

Investors took the news in stride. Analysts said the modest moves show the PBOC wants to balance the need to tighten monetary policy with avoiding jolting its markets.

China’s rate adjustments "help markets form reasonable expectations for interest rates," the PBOC said in a statement on its website on Thursday. It also prevents financial institutions from adding excessive leverage and expanding broad credit supply, it said.

The cost of seven-day and 28-day reverse-repurchase agreements was raised by five basis points. That followed an increase in mid-March. The cost of funds lent via MLF was also increased by five basis points, with the 1-year rate raised to 3.25 percent. Rates on SLF borrowings with tenors from overnight to a month went up by the same amount, the people familiar said.

"This action seems to follow the Fed," said Raymond Yeung, chief greater China economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. "Since it only lifted the rate by just five basis points the central bank does not want to jeopardize the market with an aggressive hike. It does indicate the tightening bias of the policy makers and this stance will continue in 2018."

China Follows Fed in Tightening, Though Makes Smaller Moves

More than 80 percent of the 32 economists, analysts and traders surveyed ahead of the Fed meeting had said that the PBOC would maintain its rates on reverse-repurchase agreements, which guide the cost of funding in financial markets. The PBOC refrained from raising borrowing costs in June after a Fed hike then.

Further Fed interest rate hikes will have some impact on capital flows, while the overall effect won’t be especially significant because China has already been tightening amid deleveraging efforts, Lillian Li, senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said at a briefing Thursday in Shanghai.

Recovering sentiment on the yuan, a yield gap near the widest in more than two years between U.S. and Chinese 10-year sovereign bonds, and still-moderate inflation offer breathing room for policy makers as 2017 comes to a close. But abstaining from a rate increase may have fueled risks of yuan depreciation, especially in an environment where a prospective U.S. tax cut may lead to some capital repatriation.

Read More: China Said to Make Plans for Fallout From Trump Tax Reform

The seven-day reverse repurchase rate is now viewed as a key policy benchmark, steering borrowing costs by creating the bottom part of a corridor. MLF rates are used to guide costs through the yield curve. The traditional one-year lending and deposit benchmark rates have been unchanged since late 2015.

Sun Guofeng, director of the PBOC’s financial research institute, said in a recent speech that emerging market economies should also start monetary policy normalization and exit the easing measures that were put into place to address the global financial crisis.

--With assistance from Jeff Kearns Helen Sun and Karl Lester M. Yap

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Tian Chen in Beijing at tchen259@bloomberg.net, Yinan Zhao in Beijing at yzhao300@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Malcolm Scott at mscott23@bloomberg.net, Richard Frost at rfrost4@bloomberg.net, Sarah McDonald

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Tian Chen, Yinan Zhao