Top 100 beauties in the world!
Gallery: Who is the most beautiful one?
If you like autumn, put your hands in the air!
Fan Bingbing's "Queen style" in new play
Lingerie show at 2014 Miss China
J-10 fighters show aerobatic stunts in smog-free sky
Charming contestants of Shanghai Int’l Model Contest
Most amazing chi-pao beauties
7 deadly animal attacks
Russia to launch 70 Proton rockets by 2020: officialBEIJING, Nov. 25 -- The decision to expand the floating interest rate range marks an important step forward for China's market-oriented reform, known as interest rate liberalization, economists said.
The decision was announced on Friday by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) together with interest rate cuts, the first time this has been done since July 2012.
The deposit rate ceiling was raised to 120 percent of the one-year benchmark deposit rate, which stands at 2.75 percent, from the previous 110 percent "in support of market-oriented interest rate reform", the PBOC said in a statement.
Until June 2012 when the 110-percent deposit rate ceiling was introduced, China's commercial banks were generally not allowed to offer deposits rates higher than the benchmark.
"With the expansion of the upper limit of the floating range for deposit interest rates, financial institutions will have more room in pricing (deposit rates) on their own," the PBOC said in another statement.
It will also help establish a mechanism in which the interest rates are decided by the market, the PBOC said.
The central bank also canceled the five-year benchmark deposit rates, and is merging the one-/three-year and three-/five-year benchmark lending rates into a single rate at 6 percent.
"In making these changes, we think the PBOC is trying to hit two birds with one stone -- lower borrowing costs and accelerate interest rate liberalization," HSBC chief China economist Qu Hongbin said in a note.
UBS chief China economist Wang Tao echoed his view. The PBOC reduced the types of different lending and deposit rate benchmarks available, taking another step towards eventual full interest rate liberalization, she said.
Interest rate liberalization has been high on the agenda of China's overall reform. A reform masterplan, adopted at a key meeting of the Communist Party of China last November, promises to speed up the interest rate reform and allows the market to play a decisive role in resource allocation.
In March this year, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said during China's annual legislative session that the country is very likely to ease its grip on banks' deposit rates -- the last and most important step of interest rate liberalization -- in the coming one or two years.
In July, Zhou reiterated that China is likely to have fully-liberalized interest rates within two years, but the timetable will depend on economic circumstances at home and abroad.
Overall, the PBOC has been following a step-by-step approach in the interest rate reform.
Last December, the PBOC allowed interbank trading of certificates of deposit (CDs), a financial instrument that gives commercial banks further market-determined pricing power, following the removal of the floor on lending rates last July.
Xiang Songzuo, chief economist at the Agricultural Bank of China, one of the country's big four lenders, said Friday's rate change was "a positive shot by the PBOC to eventually abolish the benchmark deposit and lending interest rates".
Qu of HSBC said both the simplification of the interest rates and the higher upper bound are welcome steps towards interest rate liberalization.
The rate-change decision demonstrated the central bank's commitment to push forward interest rate liberalization even as it pursues monetary easing, Qu said.
Many in the market argued, incorrectly, that the PBOC's commitment to the interest rate liberalization process should preclude monetary easing. This argument blurred two conceptually distinct economic phenomena. With Friday's decision, the PBOC proved that it can easily make this distinction, Qu said.
Wang Tao agreed. "As we have argued, rate cuts and interest rate liberalization can be compatible," she said.
On Friday, the PBOC also said that the next step will be a gradual introduction of CDs to individuals and companies, and continues to liberalize deposit interest rates in an orderly manner.
Female soldiers
Celebrity goddesses
Official trailer of Y-20
Photos: Xi Jinping in Fujian
Standard faces for each countries
China-made military transport aircraft gets ready
World Pole Dance Championship in China
59-year-old Liu Xiaoqing still looks stunning
Shocking! Photos of Chinese fighters revealed
Top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world
Top 10 fifth generation jet fighters in the world
Top 10 Chinese goddesses
Top 20 hottest women in the world in 2014
Top 10 pure beauties in showbiz
Top 10 world's highest-paid models 2014
The most gorgeous Chinese women
Top 10 most handsome faces in AsiaDay|Week|Month