SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s central bank partially rolled over maturing medium-term policy loans while keeping the interest rates unchanged for a third straight month on Tuesday, largely matching market expectations.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it was keeping the rate on 850 billion yuan ($120.21 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions at 2.75%, unchanged compared with the previous operation.
In a poll of 31 market watchers this week, all participants expected the PBOC to keep the interest rate unchanged, while 22 of them anticipated the central bank to fully roll over the maturing loans.
With 1 trillion yuan worth of MLF loans set to expire on the same day, the operation resulted in a net 150 billion yuan medium-term cash withdrawal from the banking system.
The central bank also injected 172 billion yuan through seven-day reverse repos while keeping borrowing costs unchanged at 2.00%, it said in an online statement.
The PBOC surprised markets in August by lowering both rates by 10 basis points to revive credit demand and support an economy hurt by COVID-19 shocks.
($1 = 7.0710 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Winni Zhou and Brenda Goh; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
