China's one-year loan prime rate remains unchanged

BEIJING - China's one-year loan prime rate (LPR) came in at 4.15 percent Monday, unchanged from a month earlier, according to the National Interbank Funding Center.

The above-five-year LPR stood at 4.8 percent, also the same as the previous reading.

China's central bank announced a plan to reform the LPR mechanism in August 2019, to better reflect market changes in its latest move to guide borrowing costs lower to support the real economy.

Under the revamped mechanism, the LPRs, released on the 20th day of every month, are based on rates of the central bank's open market operations, especially the medium-term lending facility rates.

The first new one-year LPR, released on Aug 20 last year, stood at 4.25 percent, 10 basis points lower than the central bank benchmark lending rate, while the first new above-five-year LPR was slightly lower than the 4.9-percent central bank benchmark rate.