China's central bank skips open market operations

BEIJING - The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, on Friday suspended open market operations.

The suspension came after injections of 190 billion yuan ($30 billion) and 150 billion yuan, respectively, through seven-day reverse repos by the central bank on Thursday and Wednesday.

A reverse repo is a tool the central bank uses to inject liquidity into the banking sector by purchasing securities from commercial banks through bidding, with an agreement to sell them back in the future.

The central bank has increasingly relied on open market operations for liquidity management, rather than cuts in interest rates or reserve requirement ratios.

China has vowed to maintain a prudent and neutral monetary policy in 2018 to balance growth and risk prevention.