MNI China Daily Summary: Thursday, April 17

EXCLUSIVE: China's Loan Prime Rate is likely to remain unchanged in April after strong first-quarter economic data and as official support for capital markets has succeeded in lowering volatility amid tariff tensions.

LIQUIDITY: The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted CNY245.5 billion via 7-day reverse repos, with the rate unchanged at 1.50%. The operation led to a net injection of CNY65.9 billion after offsetting the maturities of CNY65.9 billion reverse repos today, according to Wind Information.

RATES: The seven-day weighted average interbank repo rate for depository institutions (DR007) fell to 1.6837% on Thursday from 1.7176% previously, Wind Information showed. The overnight repo average decreased to 1.6384% from the previous 1.6919%.

YUAN: The currency strengthened to 7.2980 against the dollar, from 7.3179 at Wednesday's close. The PBOC set the dollar-yuan central parity rate lower at 7.2085, compared with 7.2133 set on Wednesday. The fixing was estimated at 7.3121 by Bloomberg survey today.

BONDS: The yield on 10-year China Government Bonds was last at 1.6425%, up from Wednesday's close of 1.6350%, according to Wind Information.

STOCKS: The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.13% to 3,280.34, while the CSI300 index fell 0.02% to 3,772.22. The Hang Seng Index rose 1.61% to 21,395.14.

FROM THE PRESS: New home prices in first-tier cities rose by 0.1% m/m in March, the same pace as February, with second-hand properties reversing the previous 0.1% decline to grow by 0.2%, Securities Daily reported, citing data by the National Bureau of Statistics. Among 70 major cities, 24 saw new home prices rise in March, six more than February, while ten cities noted price rises for second-hand housing, seven more than previous, the newspaper said.

Government bond issuance will accelerate in Q2 to CNY7.8 trillion with net financing at CNY4.3 trillion, according to Securities Times, citing estimates from Industrial Securities. The Ministry of Finance will launch a first batch of CNY1.8 trillion special treasuries next Thursday. Local governments plan to issue over CNY2 trillion of bonds in Q2, higher than the same period last year. The scale of bond supply in the second quarter could exceed expectations considering the need to expand fiscal policy to hedge external pressure, the newspaper said, citing Feng Ling, analyst at Golden Credit Rating.

The Canton Fair launched a dedicated station to connect 200 exporters with Chinese buyers, Securities Times reported. However, traditional foreign trade enterprises lack domestic sales channels and brand awareness, according to Chen Jianwei, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics. Additionally, export companies usually ship using buyer-to-buyer bulk orders and face difficulty adapting to the fragmented domestic retail system, said Zhu Keli, founding dean at the National Research Institute of New Economy.