Shanghai Daily: Business - shanghaidaily.com
CHINA raised interest rates yesterday for the sixth time this year, the latest move in line with a tighter monetary policy to cool the world's fastest-growing economy. From today, the benchmark one year lending rate will increase 0.18 percentage point to a nine-year high of 7.47 percent, while the one-year deposit rate will be up 0.27 percentage points to 4.14 percent, the People's Bank of China said on its Website. "Inflation expectations are rising and the central bank really needs aggressive action to cool them," said Stephen Green, senior economist at the Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd. "It will get more aggressive from now on." Different from the five previous rate increases, the central bank lowered by 0.09 percent the interest rate for demand deposits - those that can be withdrawn at any time - to encourage savers to tie up their cash for longer periods rather than having it readily available to shift into shares or property. The move is to help