The People's Bank of China said yesterday a fourth quarterly meeting of its monetary policy committee predicted broad money supply, or M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, would grow by up to 17 percent this year.

It compares to the maximum 15 percent target it set at the beginning of the year.

"The purpose is obviously to combat deflation and problems in economic growth," said Huang Jinlao, a researcher with the Institute of International Finance at the Bank of China.

"It illustrates that the central bank wants the monetary policy to play a bigger role."

China's consumer price index, a key gauge for inflation, dipped by 0.8 percent in the first nine months of the year from a year earlier, extending a downward spiral that started last November.

Although the central bank has largely defended its prudent monetary policy and avoided calling sliding prices "deflation," analysts say it has been scaling up money supply in the second half of the year, most noticeably in the past two months.

The annualized M2 growth quickened from 14.4 per cent in July to 15.5 percent at the end of August - the slickest since August in 2000. It powered to 16.5 percent in September.

Zhang Xueying, senior researcher with the State Information Centre, said a key factor in the acceleration was the substantial rise in bank loans for the year, which is primarily a response to the country's better-than-expected economic growth and partly because of growing pressure from the central bank to lend more.

Huang said the central bank's move could also be seen in frequent open market operations, which were most active in July and August, as well as its increased buying of foreign currencies aimed at bolstering local currency supply, which has led to rises in foreign reserves.

Zhang said the pace of money supply was faster than expected but the revised growth rate is "appropriate" given an expected weakening next year in the role of the fiscal policy.

In response to worries that rapid growth in loans may heighten financial risks, Han Qiang, an official with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said the bank's lending plans are largely independent of monetary policy concerns and based on its own circumstances.

"As long as we can find good customers, the quality of loans should be no problem," Han said.

(China Daily October 22, 2002)