China planning to cut lenders' reserve requirements again

Chinese authorities were preparing to boost their monetary policy stimulus by easing lenders' reserve requirement ratios.

According to reports referencing Chinese state media, China's state council announced that it would carry out "broad" and "targeted" reductions in the banks' reserve requirement ratios "in a timely manner".

The last RRR cut was conducted in January, when lender's reserve ratios were lowered by 100 basis points, allowing them to reduce the amount of reserves deposited with the People's Bank of China by roughly $116.0bn, which in turn were freed up to be lent out at higher interest rates.

The state council reportedly also announced that it would aim for a pace of economic growth in 2019 in a "reasonable range", of between 6.0% and 6.5%.

It would be the seventh RRR cut since the start of 2018.