Central bank continues cash injection to support liquidity

BEIJING - China's central bank on Friday continued cash injections into the interbank market to ensure stable liquidity.

The People's Bank of China pumped 80 billion yuan ($12.1 billion) into the market through reverse repos, a process by which the central bank purchases securities from commercial banks through bidding with an agreement to sell them back in the future.

The operations included 50 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos priced to yield 2.45 percent, and 30 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos with a yield of 2.6 percent.

The injection was offset by 20 billion yuan in maturing reverse repos, leading to a net addition of 60 billion yuan into the market.

This is the fourth straight day for the central bank to make a net cash injection via open market operations, resulting in a total net injection of 560 billion yuan into the market this week, the highest level this year.

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

China has decided to pursue a "prudent and neutral" monetary policy in 2017, applying a full range of policy instruments to maintain basic stability in liquidity and hold interest rates at an appropriate level.