China will focus on stabilising the economy and keeping growth within a reasonable range in 2022, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday, after a meeting of top leaders ended.
China will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy and to implement a proactive fiscal policy, according to a statement issued after the annual Central Economic Work Conference, held from December 8-10, cited by Xinhua.
“Next year’s economic work should prioritise stability and all regions and departments should shoulder the responsibility of stabilising the macro economy,” Xinhua quoted the statement as saying, adding that China will appropriately bring forward policies conducive to economic stability next year.
“We must see that China’s economic development is facing the triple pressure of shrinking demand, supply shock and weakening expectations,” Xinhua said, citing the meeting.
The world’s second-largest economy faces multiple headwinds heading into 2022, due to a property downturn and strict Covid-19 curbs that have impeded consumption.
China will implement new tax and fee cuts and appropriately front-load infrastructure investment next year, it said.
The meeting called for coordinated fiscal and monetary policies and combined cross-cyclical and counter-cyclical policy adjustments, and implementation of a strategy of expanding domestic demand, Xinhua said.
China Buys Large Amount of French, Ukrainian Feed Grain
Meanwhile, Chinese buyers have been making large purchases of French wheat and barley along with Ukrainian corn and barley in the last week, trade sources said, taking advantage of a pause in surging prices to cover some of their feed grain needs.
While the total volumes bought were not yet clear, the sources said importers had secured at least several hundred thousand tonnes of grain from France and Ukraine.
The Chinese buyers also made major purchases of Australian feed wheat that again represented at least several hundred thousand tonnes, some of the sources added.
The deals point to China’s continued major grain import requirement, despite the arrival of its domestic corn crop and difficulties in its pig industry, and further illustrate the readiness of buyers to seize on falls in international prices.
Wheat futures soared to a nine-year high in the United States and a record peak in Europe last month, fuelled by concern about rain damage to Australia’s harvest and Russian export curbs, before retreating sharply since last week.
For French wheat, buyers were understood to have booked between six and 10 vessels, or potentially up to 600,000 tonnes, for shipment mainly between January and March, six traders said.
The French wheat was expected to be used mainly for livestock feed, although some may be for milling markets, the traders added.
The latest sales would bring cumulative exports of French wheat to China in 2021/22 to 2 million tonnes, surpassing already large volumes in the past two seasons, traders said.
• Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard
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