Minimal impact on stocks from CB's new rule ( 2003-08-27 10:50) (Shanghai Daily)
The central bank's decision to raise the reserve requirement for domestic
banks and finance institutions starting next month is expected to have only a
minimal impact on China's stock markets in the long term, analysts say.
Share prices in Shanghai rebounded slightly, rising 0.21 percent to end at
1425.21 yesterday after falling 1.16 percent on Monday when the stock market
reacted negatively to the decision by the People's Bank of China to increase the
reserve requirement to 7 percent from 6 percent starting on September 21.
The move seeks to curtail the oversupply of money and banking loans to cool
some overheated sectors, such as the real estate industry.
It is generally believed that higher reserve requirements would slow down
money supply, which would dampen trading on the stock market as less capital
flows in.
However, an analyst believes that it is unlikely to happen in China because
Chinese banking loans are not allowed to be invested in stocks.
"The increase or decrease in the reserve requirement does not exert too much
impact on the movements in the stock market as the loans are banned from
investing in equities," said Qiu Yanying, an analyst at China Securities Co Ltd.
There were previous cases in which banking loans were invested in the stock
market but the crackdown by the central bank on such practices in 2001 has
ensured the malpractice is kept at bay.
"It is a clean market that is now almost free of illegal money. So I think
that would not cause a wild swing," said Zhang Qi, an analyst at Haitong
Securities Co Ltd.
But the banking and real estate sectors would be hard hit by the more
stringent monetary policy.
"Banks would earn less as they have less money for lending while property
companies would not have as easy an access to banking loans as before," said Yu
Hao, analyst at China Euro Securities Co Ltd.
The 1 percentage point change in the reserve requirements is expected to
freeze 150 billion yuan (US$18.12 billion) in bank reserves, according to the
central bank.
As a result, the growth in M2 money supply, which tracks cash in circulation,
demand and time deposits, would be reduced by 3.65 percent this year from around
16 percent in 2002, according to a report from Shenyin & Wanguo Research
& Consulting Co Ltd.
Banks would provide some 453 billion yuan less in loans this year than Last
year's 1.9 trillion yuan, according to the report.