The People's Bank of China (PBOC) will not consider changing the interest rates until August's statistics are released, said PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan.

Economic experts have been predicting that interest rates will increase on Oct. 1, but this does not represent the viewpoint of the central bank, the Economic Daily quoted Zhou as saying Tuesday.

The National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to release the macro-economic figures for August beginning Sept. 10. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which hit a 5.3 percent year-on-year increase in July, will be made public on Sept. 13.

Zhou's remarks were PBOC's latest comment on whether the interest rate would be increased, said the newspaper. Discussion of the issues was triggered by the declining growth rate of the residents' savings deposit.

China's deposit balance was 11,400 billion yuan in July, up 15.9 percent, or 3.6 percentage points lower, over the same period oflast year. The growth rate decreased for the fifth consecutive month in 2004, making it the lowest since April in 2002.

PBOC used to take quick measures to the dropping growth rate of deposit in 1992 when inflation rate was more than 10 percent. The deposit rebounded only two months after the central bank increased interest rate in 1993, following another increase in 1992.

With an ever-decreasing rate of deposits and continuous inflation, PBOC repeatedly says that it is merely an observer of market predictions about an interest rate increase.

(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2004)