China's central bank condemns foreign media reports on yuan

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's central bank on Friday condemned two news reports from foreign media outlets published this week about currency reforms and monetary policy. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement on its official Weibo account the reports "fabricated facts, misled readers, misled markets", and that it reserved the right to take legal action. The statement referred to the headlines of two news articles published this week but did not identify the outlets. The headlines appeared on articles published this week by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. The Wall Street Journal article, "A Rare Look Inside China's Central Bank Shows Slackening Resolve to Revamp Yuan", was published on Monday. The Bloomberg article, "China said to Plan Asking U.S. on Timing of Fed Rate Hike", was published on Wednesday. A Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, told Reuters in an emailed response: "We stand behind our fair and accurate reporting of this story." Bloomberg declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. The central bank added in its statement that it would continue with market-oriented reforms, increase two-way flexibility of the yuan and keep the yuan basically stable. (Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong and the Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Sam Holmes)