China's central bank doubles down on financing support to boost consumption
China is doubling down on its efforts to encourage domestic consumption, with the central government and the country's wealthiest province rolling out policies aimed at providing structural financial support and on-the-ground incentives.
Continued policy support is crucial to keep China's domestic consumption afloat as trade uncertainties and unemployment pressures persist, analysts said.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on Tuesday that a 500 billion yuan (US$69.68 billion) relending quota announced last month will help 21 national financial institutions and five key city commercial banks establish consumption and pension loans.
'We will strengthen incentives with structural monetary policy tools to encourage and guide financial institutions to extend loans to various types of business entities in key areas of service and consumption,' the PBOC said in guidance issued with five other government departments.
The document contains 19 initiatives covering financial support measures for consumers and sellers.
China's central bank listed several key sectors it aims to support, including retail, hotels, restaurants, sports, entertainment and tourism.
'We will guide financial institutions to continuously increase financial support in the area of consumption and provide strong financial support for consumption to fulfil its fundamental role in our economic development,' it said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
Nvidia taps 2 young Chinese AI experts to strengthen research
US chip giant Nvidia has hired two prominent artificial intelligence (AI) experts who hail from China, underscoring the rising global recognition of talent from the mainland and their key contributions to the field's advancement. Zhu Banghua and Jiao Jiantao, both alumni of China's Tsinghua University, said on their respective social media accounts that they joined Nvidia, sharing photos of themselves with Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of the company. Zhu, who received his bachelor's degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Tsinghua in 2018 and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2024, joined Nvidia's Nemotron team as a principal research scientist, according to Zhu's post on X from over the weekend. Zhu's LinkedIn profile showed that he has also been an assistant professor at the University of Washington since September 2024. 'We'll be joining forces on efforts in [AI] model post-training, evaluation, agents, and building better AI infrastructure – with a strong emphasis on collaboration with developers and academia,' Zhu said, adding that the team was committed to open-sourcing its work and sharing it with the world. Nemotron is a group at Nvidia dedicated to building enterprise-level AI agents, according to the team's official website. The team's Nemotron multimodal models power AI agents for sophisticated text and visual reasoning, coding and tool-use capabilities. Jiao, who received a PhD in electrical, electronics and communications in engineering from Stanford University in 2018 after graduating from Tsinghua with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, said on LinkedIn over the weekend that he joined Nvidia to 'help push the frontier of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial super intelligence (ASI).'
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
South Korea's Lee nominates finance minister to tackle growth, Trump
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung nominated Koo Yun-cheol as the next finance minister, turning to a veteran bureaucrat to guide the economy at a time of sluggish growth and mounting trade pressures from the Trump administration. 'The president nominated Koo Yun-cheol, a widely recognised policy expert, as finance minister as he is a figure who has long contemplated Korea's innovation and is well-suited to chart a path for national growth,' Kang Hoon-sik, Lee's chief of staff, said in a televised press conference on Sunday. Koo, a former second vice finance minister and head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, would return to the top economic post as Lee forms a team to counter rising headwinds following months of political turmoil. While serving under then-finance minister Hong Nam-ki during the Moon Jae-in administration, Koo helped guide Korea's economy through the Covid-19 pandemic and the inflation shocks of the early 2020s. The 60-year-old holds a doctorate in business administration from Chung-Ang University and a degree in economics from Seoul National University. Koo would take the reins from Kim Beom-seok, who has filled the role on an acting basis since Choi Sang-mok resigned. The nomination comes just weeks after Lee's victory over conservative rival Kim Moon-su in a closely watched presidential election. The snap vote was triggered by President Yoon Suk-yeol's impeachment in April following his botched declaration of martial law late last year.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Foreign ice cream is no longer cool in China. Here's why that matters
For years, Feng Hui, an operations manager living in Guangzhou, made a tradition of taking her daughter Claire to celebrate her birthday at a Haagen-Dazs store near her home. Advertisement But this month, the 14-year-old had other ideas: she told her mother she wanted to spend her birthday at a popular local tea bar with her friends. 'Chinese teenagers now prefer domestic brands – they look great, and new products are coming out every month that tempt them to take selfies and post on social media,' Feng said. The birthday cake also got a makeover. Instead of a Haagen-Dazs ice cream cake – which used to be a byword in China for luxury and sophistication – Claire chose a custom-made cake from a local bakery featuring her favourite video game character. In her eyes, Haagen-Dazs is simply 'not cool' – a sentiment that is becoming common among young Chinese, reflecting broader shifts in the country's consumer landscape. Advertisement
