Chinese Monetary Policy Will Remain Unchanged, Needs Greater Certainty to Deal with COVID-19 Uncertainties: PBOC

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A senior official from the Chinese central bank has flagged the maintenance of steady monetary policy in the near-future, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to roil the global economy.

Sun Guofeng (孙国峰) head of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) monetary policy department, said that uncertainty has increased since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that monetary policy needs to be more “certain” in order to deal with various uncertainties.

Sun made the remarks at a routine press conference of the State Council held on 25 August, with the participation of senior officials from the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC).

In order to shore up the “certainty” of monetary policy, Sun said that PBOC will maintain a stance of the “Three Unchangeds” (三个不变):

  1. Keeping the direction of steady monetary policy unchanged,
  2. Keeping the requirement of flexibly moderate operation unchanged – meaning that the market will not lack money while not letting the market “overflow,”
  3. Keeping the determination to maintain normal monetary policy unchanged.

Sun also said that PBOC had not “adopted irregular monetary policy such as zero interest rates, let alone negative interest rates, or quantitative easing, and for this reason there are no so-called withdrawal issues.”

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