© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Paramilitary police officers stand guard in front of the headquarters of the People’s Bank of China, the Central Bank (PBOC), in Beijing, China September 30, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China’s central bank renewed medium-term policy loans due while keeping interest rates unchanged on Monday, in line with market expectations.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it kept the interest rate on one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans of 125 billion yuan ($18.08 billion) for some financial institutions unchanged at 2.75% from the previous operation.
In a Reuters poll of 30 market watchers conducted last week, 26 respondents, or 86.7%, expected no change in the MLF rate, while four expected a marginal rate cut.
With 100 billion yuan of MLF loans expiring this month, the operation has injected 25 billion yuan of net new money into the banking system.
The central bank also injected 2 billion yuan through seven-day reverse repurchase agreements while keeping borrowing costs unchanged at 2.00%, the central bank said in an online statement.
($1 = 6.9121)