PBOC to increase financial support for economic restructuring: governor

China

PBOC to increase financial support for economic restructuring: governor

2026-03-22 20:28 Last Updated At：21:07

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank, will increase financial support for the country's economic restructuring, Governor Pan Gongsheng said at the China Development Forum Annual Meeting 2026 in Beijing on Sunday.

The two-day forum brings together global business leaders to explore shared opportunities arising from China's high-quality development.

Themed "China in its 15th Five-Year Plan period: advancing high-quality development and creating new opportunities together," the forum highlights China's role as a key engine of global development as it begins its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030).

Pan said at the forum that China's central bank will continue the implementation of a moderately loose monetary policy. A variety of monetary policy tools, including the reserve requirement ratio, policy interest rates, and open market operations, will be utilized to maintain ample liquidity.

"Following the classification standards of the International Monetary Fund, China implements a managed floating exchange rate system. In the first three months or so of this year, the RMB has appreciated by about 1.3 percent against the U.S. dollar, 3.7 percent against the euro, 3.2 percent against the Japanese yen, and 2.4 percent against the British pound. China has neither the need nor the intention to gain a competitive advantage in trade through currency devaluation," Pan said.

Pan also said that the central bank will steadily promote high-level opening up of the financial industry, deepen the interconnection of financial markets and cross-border interconnection of payment systems, so as to facilitate more investment into China's financial markets.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.