CRI听力:China Fine-tunes Monetary Policy to Ensure Stable Growth

The 50-basis-point cut takes effect on Monday. It's the first time China's central bank has cut the bank reserve limit in nearly three years.

Zhang Jun, an economics professor at Fudan University, says the cut will be a major tool in the fine-tuning of monetary policy to ensure a stable economic growth.

"Our GDP growth in the third quarter decreased by nearly 0.5 percent compared to that of the second quarter. This downward trend is expected to continue this year. If it extends, the growth rate of China's economy will probably drop to 8 percent in the first quarter of next year. Usually, in China, the growth rate below 8 percent indicates the economy will suffer from deflation. In other words, we will face severe difficulties in the areas of employment and commodity prices. "

Zhang Jun says that the Central Bank's decision will inject about 400 billion yuan into the market and ease the capital crunch faced many enterprises.

"Top government officials conducted several investigations over the past two months around the country and discovered that credit strains had created a deteriorating environment for small and medium-sized enterprises. The manufacturing and export industries have been confronted with difficulties raised by liquidity shortage."

Zhang Jun predicts that one or two more cuts of the reserve requirement ratio will be announced in the following months.

Zhou Dewen, President of the Wenzhou Council for the Promotion of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, says that the cut is good news. But it's not enough.

"A looser monetary policy will definitely help SMEs. But it cannot solely ease the capital shortage. Large-scale companies will mainly benefit from the move while small enterprises can hardly get support from banks. About 90 percent of small enterprises cannot get bank loans. Their capital chains can break at anytime. "

Wenzhou is a city famous for the vitality of its small and medium-sized enterprise sector. However, it is reported that about 20 percent of its 400,000 SMEs are either running in the red, or have stopped operating or gone into bankruptcy this year due to the lack of cash.

Zhou Dewen's council currently has nearly 2,000 member companies. He calls for more support from banks to ease their capital burden and urges the government to expand financing channels for small companies.

For CRI, I'm Li Ningjing.