Chart of the Day: Shantytown Redevelopment Loans Sink to 18-Month Low

China’s central bank injected 9.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) of funds into three policy banks in August through pledged supplementary lending (PSL), the main source of funding for the country’s shantytown redevelopment projects. This marks the lowest monthly issuance by the funding facility since February 2017, according to data from the People’s Bank of China.

Graphic: Gao Baiyu/Caixin

The three policy banks are the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China and the Agricultural Development Bank of China. They are tasked with granting loans to local governments to fund development projects such as the shantytown renovation initiatives, which relocate citizens from rundown and even dangerous areas to new homes.

China’s central bank introduced PSL in 2014 to better target medium-term lending rates and boost liquidity in specific sectors by offering low-cost loans to selected lenders. By the end of August, the country’s outstanding PSL lending stood at 3.2 trillion yuan.

Contact reporter Charlotte Yang (yutingyang@caixin.com)