CNBC:

I have two questions. First, what are the favorable policies for housing purchase and loans? Second, what progress has been made in digital RMB piloting programs and research and development? For example, is there any information on the daily transactions and active users to share? What new application scenarios will digital RMB have for consumption among others? More foreigners will come to China during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, and will there be any attempt to employ it then? Thank you.

Zou Lan:  

I will answer the second question first. At present, the PBC has launched pilot digital RMB programs in places including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan New Area, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi'an, Qingdao, and Dalian, and built pilot scenarios for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, basically covering the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as well as central, western, northeastern, and northwestern China. As of December 31, 2021, the number of digital RMB pilot scenarios had exceeded 8.0851 million, and individual wallets had totaled 261 million, with 87.565 billion yuan in transactions. The pilot programs have effectively verified the business technical design, system stability, easy use of products, and scenario applicability of digital RMB, and helped the public better understand its design concept.  

Next, the PBC will act in accordance with the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), continue to steadily pilot digital RMB R&D, and further deepen the pilot use of digital RMB in retail transactions, household payments, government services, and other scenarios. The PBC will guide the pilot R&D of digital RMB to serve the real economy and people's lives so as to make more enterprises and individuals recognize the value of digital RMB and fully stimulate the enthusiasm of industrial players.  

Your first question is about the housing purchase policy. Being region-based is one of the core features of the real estate. Under the management framework of long-term real estate mechanisms, it is more important for municipal governments to assume their responsibilities and conduct city-specific real estate regulations based on the local markets. Therefore, you can ask the municipal governments for more information about the home purchase policy. As for the home loans policy, as I said before, we will still act on the principle that houses are for living in, not for speculation, and maintain basic stability in line with the long-term mechanism. We will stabilize land prices, housing prices and expectations – the priority of stabilizing expectations is to keep policy expectations steady. Indeed, as I mentioned before, various parties, especially some financial institutions, reacted to market changes based on their judgment of market trends and risk evolution in the second half of last year. As a result, since September last year, the PBC has, along with other financial management departments, strengthened communication with related financial institutions to help them accurately understand and assess market situations and better implement prudent financial regulation of the real estate so as to meet the reasonable financing needs of the real estate market. Thank you.