The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) on January 4, announced a 1-percentage-point reduction in the required reserves for commercial banks to stall flagging growth. The move will take effect in two half-percentage-point reductions on January 15 and January 25 and said this is expected to pump in 1.5 trillion yuan ($218.25 billion) of liquidity into the banking system.

(Comment: The adjustment is the fifth broad-based cut to required reserve holdings since the start of 2018 when the economy began to weaken.)