PBOC to Step Up Support for Economy, Shifts Focus to Consumption

China’s central bank said the country’s banks have to do more to foster the real economy in its latest effort to reignite the country’s flagging consumption.

The People’s Bank of China plans to shift the financial sector’s focus to benefiting people’s livelihoods and boosting consumption over the coming months, the bank said in a statement on its website Friday following a planning conference for the second half of the year. The language regarding people’s livelihoods and consumption echoes a call by the Politburo, the 24-member decision-making body led by President Xi Jinping, earlier this week.