At the State Council Information Office press conference held on the 7th, the heads of the People’s Bank of China, the State Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission introduced the relevant situation of “a package of financial policies to support the stabilization of the market and expectations” and answered questions from reporters. At the press conference, Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People’s Bank of China, announced that the reserve requirement ratio would be reduced by 0.5 percentage points, providing the market with about 1 trillion yuan of long-term liquidity, and reducing the policy interest rate by 0.1 percentage point.

Wang Qing, chief macro analyst of Orient Securities, said that this means that the extraordinary counter-cyclical adjustment in 2025 has been launched. This time, the reserve requirement ratio and interest rate cut have two main functions. First, it will reduce the loan interest rates of enterprises and residents, enhance the lending capacity of banks, and expand investment and consumption; second, the monetary policy of reducing the reserve requirement ratio and interest rates is a big move, which has released a strong signal of stabilizing growth, helping to boost market confidence, stabilize the macroeconomic trend, and stabilize the overall employment situation.

Wang Qing judged that after this interest rate cut, the interest rate of residents’ mortgage loans will be further reduced, which is a key move to promote the real estate market to stop falling and stabilize this year. The reserve requirement ratio and interest rate cut will undoubtedly effectively guide the expectations of the capital market and are the fastest positive factors in the current market. As for the foreign exchange market, the reduction of reserve requirement ratio and interest rate will play an important supporting role in stabilizing the RMB exchange rate. He predicts that there will be new incremental policies including fiscal reinforcement and consumption promotion, and there is still room for interest rate and reserve requirement ratio reduction.

On April 22, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its global economic growth forecast for 2025 by 0.5 percentage points from its last forecast in January to 2.8%. Affected by the high tariff policy of the Trump administration in the United States, all regions have been downgraded and are in a general downturn.

Tariffs have also hit the United States itself hard. The IMF sounded the alarm, saying that there is a 30% probability of falling below 2%. Falling below 2% is the rough benchmark for “deterioration of the world economy.”

Due to the erratic tariff policy of the US government, the IMF took the rare step of setting the forecast time for the basic trend to April 4 and announcing the expected value of the intermediate stage forecast.

As of late March, the IMF predicted that the growth rate in 2025 would decline slightly by 0.1 percentage points. Expectations suddenly deteriorated due to the large-scale reciprocal tariffs announced by US President Trump on April 2.

In 2025, the growth of global trade volume will shrink to about 1.7%, less than half of the 3.8% in 2024. Supply shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which stopped the flow of goods around the world, will drag down overall growth.

IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas pointed out that not only the intensification of trade frictions, but also the “risk of a sharp deterioration in the financial situation” is a hidden worry in the future.

The United States, the epicenter, has made the largest downward adjustment. The IMF’s forecast for the US growth rate in 2025 has dropped by 0.9 percentage points to 1.8%, a sharp slowdown from 2.8% in 2024. There is a 37% chance of a recession this year. Trump believes that the economic slowdown is a “short transition period”, but the IMF has also lowered the US growth rate in 2026 by 0.4 percentage points to 1.7%.

The IMF predicts that China’s growth rate will drop by 0.6 percentage points to 4.0% in 2025. Compared with the United States, which is expected to slow down from the high growth in 2024, China’s fiscal stimulus policy will support the economy. However, the IMF’s estimates for China and the United States do not include the confrontation of countermeasures that intensified after the 4th, and the decline may be further expanded.

The forecast for Japan is to grow by 0.6%, a decrease of 0.5 percentage points. The 25% industry tariff on automobiles will suppress exports. The largest decline was in Mexico, which was listed as a high tariff target from the beginning, with a decrease of 1.7 percentage points and a negative growth of 0.3%.

Among the 16 major economies, only Russia and Spain have slightly increased. The Trump administration excluded Russia from the target of reciprocal tariffs. Trump explained, “Because there is basically no business (with the United States).”

The IMF believes that the forecast is more likely to deteriorate in both the short and long term.

source: 《International Business News》

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China on April 16, the real gross domestic product (GDP) after excluding price changes in January-March grew 5.4% year-on-year. This growth rate is the same as that in October-December 2024. Production remains in good shape, but the real estate-related sector continues to be sluggish. In the future, the US tariffs on China will become a heavy burden.

The year-on-year growth rate in January-March is higher than the average market forecast (5.0%) surveyed by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Nikkei QUICK News. The month-on-month growth rate adjusted for seasonal factors is 1.2%, which is smaller than that in October-December 2024 (1.6%).

If the month-on-month growth rate is converted to an annual rate as in developed countries, the growth rate is about 4.9%. The nominal GDP, which is close to the actual living experience of the people, grew 4.6% year-on-year. The growth rate in October-December 2024 (1.6%) was 4.6%.

Other statistics were also released on the 16th. Industrial production grew by 6.5% from January to March. March alone grew by 7.7%. The production of new energy vehicles such as pure electric vehicles (EVs) grew by 45.4%, 3D printer equipment grew by 44.9%, and industrial robots grew by 26.0%.

Fixed asset investment, which reflects factory construction, grew by 4.2% from January to March. Among them, private investment grew by 0.4%. The real estate market continued to be in a sluggish state, with real estate development investment falling by 9.9% from January to March. The area of ​​new home sales also fell by 3.0%.

The total retail sales of consumer goods in March, which is calculated by adding up the sales of department stores, supermarkets, and online retail sales, grew by 5.9%. Catering revenue, which accounts for 10% of the total, grew by 5.6%. The total retail sales of consumer goods from January to March grew by 4.6% year-on-year.

At present, external demand has become a driving factor for the economy. Exports (in US dollars) from January to March grew by 5.8% year-on-year. The trade surplus obtained by subtracting imports from exports grew by more than 40% year-on-year.

The GDP growth rate from January to March exceeded the economic growth rate target of “around 5%” set by the Chinese government for 2025. The Trump administration of the United States has imposed a cumulative tariff of 145% on China, which will inevitably affect China’s exports to the United States. If external demand stagnates, the risk of economic slowdown will increase, and the uncertainty of the outlook is rising.