China’s economy has bottomed out and will be on a rising trend as the government delayed the release of third-quarter economic growth data, according to China’s Premier Li Keqiang.
“The economy was back on track for a stable trend and various policies will be fully implemented,” Li was quoted as saying at a forum.
In what is seen as a rare move is that the world’s second-largest economy delayed the publication of third-quarter gross domestic product data a day before the report was scheduled for release. Investors interpreted this move as uncertain.
The data was scheduled to be released in the middle of China’s Communist Party Congress. The National Bureau of Statistics updated its release schedule yesterday, with the dates for major economic indicators due the next day marked as “delayed.” It didn’t give a reason for the change, and provided no information about a new date.
Six banking sources said the major state-owned banks were spotted swapping yuan for US dollars in the forwards market and selling those dollars in the spot market, a playbook move used by China in 2018 and 2019 as well.
The onshore yuan, however, closed 119 basis points lower yesterday, breaking the key 7.2 level.
Sheng Songcheng, the former head of the statistics and analysis department at the PBOC, expects the yuan to trade in a range of 7 to 7.3 per US dollar for the rest of the year.
