MNI China Press Digest Jun 5: PBOC, Service Trade, Telecom

MNI (BEIJING) - Highlights from Chinese press reports on Friday:

• The People’s Bank of China continued to reduce the volume of 3-month reverse repos amid ample liquidity, aiming to prevent market interest rates from deviating excessively downward from policy interest rates, 21st Century Business Herald reported citing analysts. The PBOC net drained CNY300 billion by rolling over the maturing CNY800 billion 3-month reverse repos with a renewed CNY500 billion operations on Friday. This marks the fourth consecutive month that the central bank has reduced the tool's amount, though lower than the previous net-draining of CNY500 billion. Authorities may strengthen the coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, guiding financial institutions to appropriately increase lending and exert efforts on the demand side to promote the restoration of market liquidity balance, analysts said.
• China’s total service trade volume reached CNY2.48 trillion in the first four months, a year-on-year increase of 4.9%, with the deficit narrowing to CNY515.32 billion, a decrease of CNY139.74 billion from same period last year, CCTV News reported citing data by the Ministry of Commerce. Travel service exports topped the fastest growth by 30.4%. Exports of knowledge-intensive services grew by 11.7%, with personal cultural and entertainment services and intellectual property royalties showing the fastest growth, at 39.5% and 20.8% respectively.
• Authorities have approved 166 foreign-invested enterprises to enter China’s telecommunications sector since February 2025, legally carrying out value-added telecommunications services such as internet data centers, internet access services, and information services, Yicai.com reported citing the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In addition, the opening up of service sectors such as healthcare, education, and culture is also being actively promoted, with pilot programs to be further opened in fields such as biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, the newspaper said.