The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) building in Beijing on Dec. 15, 2022.
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China’s central bank ramped up medium-term liquidity injections as it rolled over maturing policy loans on Wednesday, while keeping the interest rate unchanged, matching market expectations.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it was keeping the rate on 499 billion yuan ($73.11 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions unchanged at 2.75% from the previous operation.
In a Reuters poll of 31 participants conducted this week, all respondents expected the MLF rate to stay unchanged, with 25 of them predicting fresh fund offerings to exceed the maturity.
With 300 billion yuan worth of MLF loans set to expire this month, the operation resulted in a net 199 billion yuan of fresh fund injection into the banking system.
The central bank also injected another 203 billion yuan through seven-day reverse repos while keeping borrowing cost unchanged at 2.00%, it said in an online statement.
