China's 1.3 billion citizenry is about to embark on the biggest movement of people in the world to celebrate the Lunar New Year with family and friends. Factories, schools, government offices - everything reminding of work - will be closed.
Cash-stuffed red envelopes will be handed out by bosses to employees, parents to kids, and elders to the young.
The holidays start Wednesday, Feb. 18. Public holidays run through Feb. 24. The full holiday period runs till March 5, when the Lantern Festival marks its end.
According to government estimates, about 2.8 billion trips will be made, including 295 million on board trains. Last year spending at retail shops and restaurants in the holiday totaled 610.7 billion yuan, or almost $100 billion.
Amid these holiday fun and fuss, the People's Bank of China has to ensure there's enough liquidity to fund the binge of travelling, shopping, drinking and gifting.
The central bank has been shoveling cash into the system via reverse repurchase agreements (where the central bank buys securities from banks), expanding a standing lending facility and doing whatever else it can to ensure money markets don't seize up, as if jockeying interest-rate liberalization, yuan internationalization and credit risks with the need to keep the economy from slowing too sharply isn't hard enough.
Compounding the headache this year, some 24 IPOs will lock up about 2 trillion yuan this week, according to data quoted by Bloomberg.
