China’s central bank on Monday continued to pump cash into the financial system through open market operations to maintain liquidity in the market.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) renewed 188.5 billion yuan (about 27.4 billion U.S. dollars) of medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans which were due on Monday and injected another 11.5 billion yuan via MLF to small and medium-sized banks, said the bank in a statement on its website, agency report.
The MLF operations totaled 200 billion yuan and will mature in one year at an interest rate of 3.3 percent.
The move aims to offset the impact of factors such as tax payment and to maintain liquidity in the banking system at a reasonably sufficient level, said the statement.
The MLF tool was introduced in 2014 to help commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank using securities as collateral.
The PBOC announced it would conduct the third phase of a cut in the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) to free around 100 billion yuan in long-term funds on Monday.
Starting in May, the central bank decided to apply a low RRR for some small and medium-sized banks in three phases to support private as well as micro and small enterprises.
The PBOC also suspended reverse repo operations Monday.
China will keep its prudent monetary policy “neither too tight nor too
loose” while maintaining market liquidity at a reasonable level in 2019.