Prudent monetary policy will remain during outbreak: PBOC

China will continually strengthen monetary and credit support to promote economic growth and limit the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak while maintaining stable prices, the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said in its quarterly monetary policy report issued on Wednesday night.

The PBOC reaffirmed implementing a prudent monetary policy while keeping it flexible and making adjustments as appropriate. The counter-cyclical adjustments will be facilitated while fostering price stability in the face of economic downward pressure.

"Preventing and curbing the epidemic of the novel coronavirus became the most significant task (of the central bank), and the monetary and credit support will be further promoted," the report said.

"At the present stage, the monetary policy shifted the intermediate target to keeping the broad money supply (M2) and aggregate financing growth generally in line with the growth of real GDP. It should follow a balanced approach in promoting the objectives of supporting economic growth and stabilizing prices," the report stressed.

The central bank will innovate and take advantage of structural monetary policy tools, such as targeted cuts of reserve requirement ratio, medium-term lending facility and re-lending, to increase credit support on micro, small and private companies, as well as manufacturing producers.

The loan prime rate mechanism should be further improved, forbidding commercial banks to set "invisible" lower limit on lending rates, a measure to decrease the financing costs of the real economy, according to the PBOC.