China's central bank continues to inject liquidity into market

BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhua): 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 US 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.

The MLF operations totaled 200 billion yuan and will mature in one year at an interest rate of 3.3 per cent.

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.