From Wall Street Journal:
Chinese authorities have increased the maximum amount banks can lend this year by 5%, bankers said Friday, in a move to relax credit curbs that have hit small businesses particularly hard.
The shift toward an easier policy came as President Hu Jintao reiterated the leadership’s new focus on sustaining economic growth amid a global slowdown.
Although China’s economy expanded by 10.4% in the first half of 2008, above even its own high average, not every industry is booming. Coastal exporters and textile manufacturers are feeling the pinch from rising costs and weaker global demand, and property markets in some cities are softening. Mr. Hu led a meeting of the Communist Party’s governing Politburo on the economy last week, and since then leaders have signaled they are ready to accommodate the worst-hit sectors.
