During the year, the two increase in interest rate and inflation pressure did not decrease.

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April 6, 2011 first financial daily

The rate hike is the fourth since last year, and experts say the cycle may have entered the second half.

Just stepping into the April, the interest rate boots were left behind.

Yesterday, the People's Bank of China announced that it would raise the benchmark interest rate of RMB deposits and loans for financial institutions from April 6, 2011. The benchmark one-year deposit and loan interest rates of financial institutions were increased by 0.25 percentage points, and the benchmark deposit and loan interest rates of other grades and individual housing provident fund loans were adjusted accordingly.

This is the second time since 2011 that the central bank has raised the benchmark interest rate. After the benchmark interest rate hike, the one-year deposit and deposit rate has risen to 3.25%, the one-year loan rate has reached 6.31%, and the negative interest rate has improved.

Market analysts said the interest rate increase may indicate that the upcoming March CPI data is high, inflationary pressures remain high, inflation control is still the primary task of this year.

Inflationary pressure triggers

In fact, as early as the two sessions, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan stressed that inflation has also increased after the successful recovery of the national economy in response to the global economic crisis, in this case, interest rate policy will certainly be an important tool to be used.

Now, looking back, the interest rate hike is reasonable and unexpected.

Previous data released by the Bureau of Statistics showed that consumer prices (CPI) rose 4.9% in February from a year earlier, a figure far beyond the supermarket expectations. Keeping the overall price level basically stable is one of the important policy objectives that the central bank has already made clear this year.

"Domestic price pressures are still very high, the CPI in January and February are actually very high; internationally, developed countries in Europe and the United States maintain loose monetary policy, and Japan injected liquidity into the market after the earthquake." Zhao Xijun, deputy dean of the School of Finance and Finance of Renmin University of China, believes that the deposit rate has been at a relatively high level, the interest rate is relatively low, and the use of interest rate space is larger than the deposit rate.

Lu Zhengzhuang, chief economist of Societe Generale Bank (601166), also believes that higher inflationary pressure is the trigger for interest rate hikes. He expects CPI growth to reach 5.2% year-on-year in March, up 7.2% from February, the same as last month.

The Bank of Australia and New Zealand also expects China's monetary authorities to raise interest rates before the CPI data are released on April 15. They believe the real negative interest rate problem facing China as inflation continues to rise urgently needs to be solved by the central bank.

The Australian New Zealand Bank pointed out that in the medium and long term, commodity prices will continue to face more significant upward pressure due to political turmoil in the Arab world and the support of rebuilding demand after the earthquake in Japan. China continues to face pressure from imported inflation. China needs to use a range of policy tools to reduce inflation risks, including foreign exchange rates. Rate, interest rate and so on.

It is reasonable for the central bank to announce interest rate hikes against the background that prices exceed expectations and price issues are paid unprecedented attention. Li Xunlei, chief economist of Guotai Junan, even thinks that this is a passive and lagging interest rate increase.

The unexpected is relative to the unexpected increase in the central bank's interest rate. On March 15, the one-year central bank rate was unexpectedly raised to 3.1992%, exceeding the benchmark one-year time deposit rate of 3% at the time for the first time, thus forcing the central bank to raise interest rates significantly.

But in the next half month of March, the central bank did not use interest rate tools. In the meantime, Yi Gang, deputy governor of the central bank, also publicly said that China's current interest rates were "comfortable" compared with global interest rates, and that too high would attract hot money.

"This increase in interest rates has widened the level of interest spread at home and abroad, which has increased the pressure on arbitrage capital inflows." Zhao Xijun said, but China is a foreign exchange control country, capital account has not been fully liberalized, SAFE has the ability to manage hot money.

Working heart is in a panic. The textile industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is unaffordable.