In brief

1 May 2003

John Thornton, president of US investment bank Goldman Sachs, has decided to retire to take a post as a professor at Qinghua University in Beijing, the Financial Times said.

The People's Bank of China announced that M2 – a key measure of money supplymincluding cash in circulation and deposits – was up 18.5 per cent at the end of March compared with the same time last year. The central bank is encouraging commercial banks to lend in order to stimulate economic growth.