New steps to free up interest rates

China will allow banks to price loans based on market-based benchmark rates and to launch certificates of deposit soon to pave the way for liberalizing bank deposit rates, the central bank said on Thursday.

Chinese leaders are seeking to steer the world's second-largest economy toward a growth model that relies more on domestic consumption, and want to gradually allow market forces to play a greater role.

"We will steadily push forward market-oriented interest rate reforms," Hu Xiaolian, a vice-governor of the People's Bank of China, said in a speech published on the central bank's website.