CNBC:
I have two questions. My first question is regarding real estate debt and the stock market. Which represents the bigger financial challenge and what measures will be taken? The second question is about the digital currency issued in Beijing and Chengdu this year. What achievements have been made and what adjustments are needed? Thank you.
Liu Guiping:
Thank you for your question. The first question concerning challenges and relevant markets goes to Mr. Zou. The second question regarding digital currency goes to Mr. Wang.
Zou Lan:
Thank you for your question. Over the past three years, according to the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, under the coordination of the Financial Stability and Development Committee under the State Council, the financial system has fully enforced all tasks and plans in the critical battle to forestall and defuse financial risks, and achieved results in the current stage. On the whole, the risks of the financial system have tended to shrink. China's financial risks are accumulated over many years and caused by systematic, mechanistic, cyclical and behavioral factors. Currently, the macro environment remains complex and severe, and the fluctuations of international capital flow are large due to the uncertainty brought by the epidemic. Shocks overseas cause fluctuations in the domestic financial market. The stock market, bond market, and bulk commodities market are exposed to the risks of oscillation. A small number of large-scale enterprise groups are still in a period of risks being exposed. Middle and low-quality enterprises still have difficulties in financing and the debt default risk is relatively high. The upward pressure on property prices is still large in some popular cities. Potential risks such as debt default among highly-leveraged medium- and small-sized real estate enterprises worth watching.
Facing the risks, in the next stage of normalizing the forestalling and defusing of financial risks, the financial management department will focus on key sectors and resolve existing risks. We will also improve mechanisms and systems, and perfect the financial risk prevention system and early warning system, to increase the activeness and foreseeability in financial risk prevention and control with a holistic view. We will resolutely guard against systemic risks to provide a good financial environment for sustained economic recovery and high-quality development.
Thank you.
Wang Xin:
The market has a great deal of interest in the digital RMB, and there is a great deal of concern. On the one hand, this has to do with the fact that more and more central banks around the world are getting involved in developing their own digital currencies. On the other hand, it may also be related to the jump in the prices of Bitcoin some time ago. The People's Bank of China has steadily promoted research, development and testing of the digital RMB, with more and broader test regions and test scenarios, and accumulated good experience. Generally speaking, the feedback from participating institutions and participating localities has been positive. For instance, the digital RMB red envelope during the Spring Festival was a good example. The digital RMB is getting closer to us, and we need to further enrich relevant scenarios and accumulate more experience. Next, we will further promote the digital RMB pilot programs and gather more experience. Thank you.
Bloomberg:
I have two questions and the first is regarding foreign outflows. As U.S. Treasury yields keep rising, is China worried about capital withdrawals of foreign and domestic investors from China's capital market? And do you have a response plan for this? Secondly, the Chinese government proposed reducing the government's leverage ratio. How does the monetary policy support this goal? Thank you.
Liu Guiping:
For these two questions, I will ask our two directors to answer separately. Regarding considerations about the impact of the reduction in the yields of treasury bonds on our entire market, Mr. Zou Lan, head of the Financial Market Department of the PBC, can you please answer it? Mr. Sun Guofeng from the Monetary Policy Department of the PBC can answer the latter question.
Zou Lan:
With regard to the bond market, we have been paying close attention to the operation of the bond market, including the situation of foreign investors investing in the Chinese bond market, as it continues to open up. Over the past few years, China's bond market has developed relatively quickly, with the balance reaching 118 trillion yuan at the end of February, ranking second in the world in terms of scale. China has a variety of bond varieties and also has complete trading tools, with expanding market depth and scale. Amid furthering opening up to the outside world, we have continuously improved the trading and settlement mechanisms of the bond market while drawing on rules of the international market. This has provided a more friendly and convenient investment environment for overseas investors.
Therefore, based on this situation, we feel that China's bond market still shows strong resilience and certain risk-aversive characteristics. From the data, we also observed that by the end of February, the scale of domestic bonds held by foreign institutions had reached 3.7 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62%. Overseas investors are mainly mid-to-long-term portfolio investors such as central banks and sovereign funds, so their holdings of Chinese bonds are relatively stable. In addition, the proportion of foreign investors' holdings in the bond market isn't high, and is now 3.1%, which is still relatively low compared with mature international markets.
We think that precisely because of these characteristics, FTSE Russell finally confirmed that China's bonds will be included in the FTSE World Government Bond Index (WGBI) a few days ago. Next, we will actively improve relevant policies and systems, and continue to promote the opening up of the bond market. That's my answer, thank you.
Sun Guofeng:
Let me answer the second question. When I introduced the framework of modern monetary policy, I talked about the 2020 Central Economic Work Conference, the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035. It is clear that the intermediate goal of monetary policy is to ensure that the growth rate of money supply and the scale of social financing basically tally with the growth rate of the nominal economy. This is an anchor of the monetary policy framework. We should see that trend of the growth rate of money supply and the scale of social financing and the growth rate of debt are basically the same. Therefore, this anchoring method of the monetary policy framework actually embeds the mechanism of stabilizing the macro leverage ratio into the monetary policy framework, which is a manifestation of the cross-cycle policy design concept proposed by the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, and conducive to achieving the long-term balance of stable growth and risk prevention. That is to say, if monetary policy achieves the intermediate goal and keeps the growth rate of the money supply and the scale of social financing basically matching the nominal economic growth rate, the macro leverage ratio can be basically maintained. Thank you.
