Amid concerns that the US-China trade war could be escalating, economists are expecting China’s central bank, PBOC, to inject more measures to ease the monetary policy and support the economy.

As Chinese economic data started showing signs of recovery recently, markets were wary that the government will go slow with its fiscal stimulus package to support growth. However, now that Trump has announced a tariff hike on Chinese imports, a fresh bout of measures to boost growth looks to be in the offing.

On its part, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) confirmed its plans on Monday to cut reserve requirement ratios (RRR) for some banks in the country. Net new loans in China have reduced to 1.02 trillion yuan in April, below expectations of 1.2 billion yuan and well below March’s 1.69 trillion yuan.

Total social financing (TSF), a broad measure of credit and liquidity, also came down to 10.4 percent in March 2019. The figure had touched 10.7 percent during the same period last year.