Only way is up, says premier

Premier Li Keqiang yesterday said China's economy has bottomed out and will be on a rising trend as the government delayed the release of third-quarter economic growth data.

Li said at a forum yesterday that the economy was back on track for a stable trend and various policies will be fully implemented.

This came as the world's second-largest economy delayed the publication of third-quarter gross domestic product data a day before the report was scheduled for release, a move which will add to investor uncertainty.

The National Bureau of Statistics updated its release schedule yesterday, with the dates for major economic indicators due the next day marked as "delayed."

It didn't give a reason for the change, and provided no information about a new date.

The data was scheduled to be released in the middle of China's Communist Party Congress.

This came as the yuan kept weakening despite the report that state banks stepped up their intervention.

Six banking sources said the major state-owned banks were spotted swapping yuan for US dollars in the forwards market and selling those dollars in the spot market, a playbook move used by China in 2018 and 2019 as well.

The onshore yuan, however, closed 119 basis points lower yesterday, breaking the key 7.2 level.

Sheng Songcheng, the former head of the statistics and analysis department at the PBOC, expects the yuan to trade in a range of 7 to 7.3 per US dollar for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, speculation intensified among yen watchers that Japan may be using subtle ways to slow the currency's decline, with some traders estimating authorities may have spent around 1 trillion yen (HK$52.7 billion) to support the currency.

Both mainland and Hong Kong shares reversed a downward trend yesterday, with the Hang Seng Index climbing 0.2 percent to 16,612 points and the Shanghai Composite index up 0.4 percent.

Tech shares, however, continued to be weak as Baidu (9888) closed 5.3 percent lower after once plunging 8 percent to a record low.

Separately, PICC Property and Casualty Company (2328) expected up to 30 percent growth in net profit in the first nine months while China Life Insurance (2628) said its premium rose by 0.13 percent to 554.1 billion yuan for the same period.