Banking

China raised banks' reserve requirements for the third time in a month Friday, taking another step to the cool its economy after new data showed a sharp increase in exports and a continued pickup in the property market.

The move by the central bank to raise the reserve-requirement ratio by half a percentage point will reduce the amount of money China's banks have available to lend, though it will likely have a less dramatic impact than the interest-rate hike that some economists had expected.

On Saturday, China's statistics agency is due to publish data that economists expect will show accelerating consumer price inflation, reinforcing the case for tighter policy. China also remains under pressure from other nations to allow its currency to appreciate more quickly.

China's current-account surplus in the third quarter more than doubled from a year earlier, its foreign-exchange regulator said Thursday, indicating the country still faces challenges in rebalancing the economy away from a reliance on external demand.

The current-account surplus—the broadest measure of China's trade balance with the outside world—was $102.3 billion in the third quarter, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement.

In the second quarter the surplus was $72.9 billion, up 35% from a year earlier, which was a sharp rebound from the first quarter, when it fell 32% from a year earlier.

China again tried to drain cash from its banking system, increasing banks' reserve requirements for a second time in as many weeks in its intensifying push to rein in inflation.

The Friday move by the central bank, the fifth this year, follows a Wednesday announcement by the State Council, the executive arm of China's government, of several measures—including price controls if necessary—aimed at containing food and commodity prices. It also comes on the heels of a rise in the so-called reserve-requirement ratio just last week, on Nov. 10, and last month's hike in benchmark interest rates, which was the first in nearly three years.

The move comes as the U.S. shows increasing impatience with China's economic policies; U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday argued that China and other emerging markets threaten the global recovery by keeping their currencies weak and allowing their economies to overheat.

China's yuan should be "immediately" included in the special drawing rights (SDR) basket of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a top Chinese banker said on Tuesday, adding that the greater status of the yuan will help stabilize the global financial system.

"The IMF should put the yuan in the SDR basket immediately," said Guo Shuqing, chairman of China Construction Bank, the world's second-largest lender by market value, and former head of the country's foreign exchange regulator.

Guo said that overseas central banks, including those in the European Union, Japan and the United States, should hold a certain amount of yuan as currency reserves through agreement with China.