A central bank report shows that China's renminbi savings
deposits dropped in October. This is the first decline since June
2001.
According to the report released yesterday, the RMB savings
deposits dropped 7.6 billion yuan (US$966.4 million) from the end
of September to 15.8 trillion yuan (US$2,009 billion)?but is
still 15.5 percent more than at the same time last year.
Year-on-year decrease for the current deposits were down 2.16
billion yuan (US$274.7 million)?at the end of October and for
the fixed deposits, the year-on-year increase was 60.79 billion
yuan (US$7,730 million)?less than 2005. ?
The central bank explained that active stock trading had drained
some of the savings deposits. Statistics show that the deposits by
customers of securities companies rose 182.9 percent over September
to 604.2 billion yuan (US$76.8 billion) by the end of October.
Despite a climate of high savings, it seems that the government
calls for Chinese people to spend more in an effort to curb runaway
investment.
The report also shows that all deposits in RMB rose 17 percent
year-on-year to 32.93 trillion yuan (US$4.2 trillion)?at the
end of October.
(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2006)