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Policy announcements by the People's Bank of China on October 10 have been heralded as pointing to quantitative easing. Photo: Reuters

Is it or is it not quantitative easing?

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Mainland investors have been debating it this week. Never mind the verdict, the debate itself has proven to be good enough to fuel a week-long rally in the share market.

The trigger did not come from a big gun, but a little-known blogger, Huang Sheng.

On October 11, Huang posted a commentary with an eyebrow-raising title: "Here comes seven trillion yuan! Here comes the Chinese QE!"

He was alluding to two policy announcements by the People's Bank of China on October 10.

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One, the removal of the loan-deposit ratio that limited a bank's lending capacity to 75 per cent of its deposit. Two, the expansion of a lending programme that allows banks to use qualified loans as collateral to borrow from the central bank to 11 provinces from two.

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