PBoC plans 'moderate' loan growth for 2010

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) stated on Wednesday that it needed to support "relatively fast" economic growth in 2010, but that it would target "moderate" loan growth to manage inflation, Bloomberg reported. Premier Wen Jiabao stated on December 27 that China should anticipate inflation from rising global commodity prices, but said price increases would be kept within a "reasonable range." Liu Mingkang, China’s chief banking regulator, has written that "structural bubbles threaten to emerge" as property prices continue to rise in China’s cities. Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC, estimated that new loans will not exceed US$1 trillion in 2010, below the record US$1.35 trillion in new loans created during the first 11 months of 2009.