China M2 growth at record low in June

China’s broader money supply M2 grew at a record-low pace in June, signaling that the country’s deleveraging efforts have continued to gain traction. In June, M2 grew 9.4% from a year earlier to 163.13 trillion yuan ($23.98 trillion), the People’s Bank of China said Wednesday. June’s subdued growth was even slower than economists’ forecast of 9.5%. M2 growth in May was 9.6%, which was itself a record low. For most of 2016, the growth rate of M2 was above 11.5%. M2 refers to the so-called M1 – cash and corporate demand deposits – plus the so-called quasi-money that will not be used in short-term, including time deposits and personal savings. Since March, banking regulators have been rolling out sweeping regulations to unwind a steroid-infused financial system and to keep systemic risks at bay. Measures include tighter oversight of high-yield wealth management products that banks sell to each other, a practice that led to surging leverage in the interbank system, according to Caixin.