Bloomberg, Reutersand staff reporterChina's consumer price index dropped 0.2 percent year on year last month, lower than expected, but new bank loans reached 1.36 trillion yuan (HK$1.62 trillion), beating estimates. "We do not think the recent period of consumer price deflation is likely to persist, said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics. However, some analysts said that as the pressure of mainland price levels wasn't strong, the People's Bank of China will deem it unnecessary to tighten monetary policy. Meanwhile, the 1.36 trillion yuan in new loans in February is down from January but still exceeded analyst expectations. Analysts in a poll had predicted new yuan loans would fall to 950 billion, down from 3.58 trillion yuan in January and compared with 905.7 billion yuan a year ago.

Source: The Standard March 10, 2021 19:07 UTC