China financial gauge improves, offering a signal of growth

Beijing

CHINA's 10-month campaign to relax monetary policy is showing signs of an impact as financial conditions ease, a shift that could help stabilise the nation's growth rate.

Bloomberg's China Monetary Conditions Index, a gauge that includes inflation-adjusted interest rates and the exchange rate, improved for a second month in August - the first back- to-back gain since 2013. Episodes of improvement in the past have tended to presage either an acceleration or a stabilisation in economic growth.