简体中文
Global coordination is important Vice Finance Minister as the world economy undergoes changes, including the latest increase in U.S. interest rates earlier this month, China's Zhu Guangyao said ahead of a G20 summit of leaders in July.
As the global economy stabilizes, major countries need to normalize their interest rates, although this is happening at a very slow pace, Zhu told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.
"We need to closely monitor how the normalization of interest rates in major economies will impact global capital markets," said Zhu.
The U.S. Federal Reserve has raised interest rates four times as part of a normalization of monetary policy that began in December 2015. The central bank had pushed rates to near zero in response to the financial crisis a decade ago.
Zhu said the new global macroeconomic environment makes it even more important for global coordination through channels like the G20, which will convene in Hamburg next month.
Earlier this week, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), an umbrella body for leading central banks, said in one of its most upbeat annual reports for years that major central banks should press ahead with interest rate increases.
Policymakers should take advantage of the improving economic outlook and its surprisingly negligible effect on inflation to accelerate the "great unwinding" of quantitative easing programmes and record low interest rates, the BIS said.
The Chinese central bank guided market interest rates higher in the first quarter, including immediately after a Fed rate hike in March. The move was partly an effort to counter pressure on the yuan from capital outflows, analysts say.
The People's Bank of China last adjusted its policy rates in October 2015.
(REUTERS)
