On June 14, the Chinese central bank announced a hike of 0.5 percentage points in the deposit reserve ratio for Chinese currency-based accounts in domestic financial institutions, effective as of June 20, 2011. This is the sixth time the Chinese central bank has raised the deposit reserve ratio in the current year.
With this latest hike, the deposit reserve ratio has reached 21.5 percent, marking a new historic high in China. Analysts estimate that the move will directly freeze a total of RMB 383.7 billion ($59 billion) in Chinese financial institutions.