China's central bank pledges improved macro-economic control to limit virus fallout

China's central bank has pledged to improve its macro-economic control to limit the fallout of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and better shore up its economy.

The impacts of the epidemic on China's economy were generally controllable, the People's Bank of China said in a statement published on Friday after a regular meeting of its monetary policy committee, adding that the country's economy has maintained strong resilience and its economic fundamentals for long-term sound growth has remained unchanged.

In addition to strengthening international macro-economic policy coordination, China will also take innovative approach to improve its macro-economic regulation and pursue a prudent monetary policy with more moderate flexibility, the meeting decided.

"Though the outbreak was basically curbed in the country and production resumption picked up pace, our containment efforts and economic growth face new challenges arising from intensifying downward economic pressure and the virus-hit global economy," the central bank said.

The PBOC also vowed to utilize multiple policy tools to maintain market liquidity at a reasonably ample level and keep prices stable, while guiding financial institutions to enhance credit support for production resumption, agricultural production, poverty relief and other key areas.

Financial supply-side structural reform will be advanced to establish a modern financial system featuring high adaptability, competitiveness and inclusiveness, the central bank said.

It will further smooth the transmission mechanism of monetary policies and cut the real interest rate of loans to beef up support for real economy, especially for micro and small enterprises and private firms.

The meeting also called more efforts to strengthen coordination among monetary, fiscal, employment and other policies and deepen market-oriented interest rate reform in a bid to buffer the economic blow from the ongoing epidemic outbreak.