A range of other factors have also contributed, including: •  entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, underpinning China’s emergence as the largest exporter of manufactured goods  •  a wave of privatisations for many inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the late 1990s  •  the emergence of private housing markets in the 1990s  •  and, more recently, policy stimulus undertaken in response to the global financial crisis.
However, the behaviour of interest rates on lats interbank market transactions of longer maturity (over six months) – they continue to drop, reaching historical lows – confirm that the tightening of liquidity conditions is only temporary.