Coronavirus: China’s central bank lends support as Shanghai eyes reopening after Covid-19 cases drop for 15th straight day

Name: Shanghai residents under Covid lockdown protest against lack of food
Uploaded: 2022-05-08T05:46:43.000Z
Duration: 3 min 2 s
Description: Shanghai residents under Covid lockdown protest against lack of food

New infections fell 5.7 per cent 3,975 from the preceding 24 hours, while symptomatic cases slid 15 per cent to 215, city officials said on Sunday

China’s central bank asked lenders to grant easy credit from US$79.5 billion unleashed from its policy easing in April, while businesses to also get loan repayment reprieve

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Workers wearing protective gear stand next to boxes with food to be delivered in a neighborhood during a Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in the Jing’an district in Shanghai on May 7. Photo: AFP

Daniel Ren

Published: 1:46pm, 8 May 2022Updated: 1:10pm, 31 May 2022

About 2,000 key manufacturers in Shanghai are likely to obtain fresh funds from banks to help speed up business reopening as the mainland’s financial capital edges closer to putting the latest Covid-19 outbreak under control.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has asked commercial lenders to grant easy credit to so-called “white-listed” companies, including car producer Tesla and chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, to reinforce their operations, after reeling under 37 days of citywide lockdown.

“The PBOC is encouraging financial institutions to better use the additional liquidity to extend loans to those companies,” Yu Wenjian, director of the financial consumer protection bureau at the central bank, said at a media briefing on Sunday. The financial support could help them accelerate the pace of business resumption, he added.

Guan Xiaojun, deputy director of the Shanghai financial regulatory bureau, said at the briefing that some companies hard hit by pandemic curbs would be allowed to delay loan repayment to the end of this year to help ease a strain on their cash flow and production hiccups.

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Shanghai residents under Covid lockdown protest against lack of food

China’s central bank lowered major banks’ reserve-requirement ratio by 25 basis points last month, unleashing 530 billion yuan (US$79.5 billion) of additional liquidity into the banking system to support the economy as the Omicron variant plagued more than 70 cities nationwide.

Shanghai, the nation’s main commercial and financial hub and gateway for foreign capital and the current epicentre of the outbreak, reported a fall in new Covid-19 cases for the 15th consecutive day.