China central bank injects $42b

Analysts believe the cash crunches in June and December fortified the central bank's intention to maintain liquidity and avoid sharp money rate rises.

The People's Bank of China said the move was designed to stabilize the money market and meet surging cash demand ahead of China's seven-day Spring Festival holiday, which starts on January 31. The central bank also asked financial institutions to enhance liquidity and debt management.

"We don't think the monetary policy stance has turned toward loosening, because the current GDP growth rate is still acceptable to the government," Zhang said.

Curtailing shadow banking and local government debt were listed as key tasks this year at a December conference setting the tones for economic polices, highlighting Chinese leadership's resolve to de-leverage the economy.

"Unless the activity growth rate were to surprise on the downside, we would expect top leaders' focus to remain on long-term structural reforms and the threshold of policy easing to remain high," Helen Qiao, chief Greater China economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a report last week.

Morgan Stanley said policy makers would likely push forward reforms and strike a balance between partial de-leveraging and service sector liberalization to stabilize growth.

Meanwhile, some economists expect China to see more liquidity volatility in 2014 as regulators may further liberalize interest rates and the financial market.

UBS said in a report that such processes usually led to higher and more volatile interest rates.

"The government is attempting to achieve a tightening bias to slow credit growth; and the rapid development of China's shadow banking activities has made the system more sensitive to both a credit event in the shadow credit market and regulatory tightening," according to UBS.