China’s central bank injects liquidity into market in January

BEIJING – China’s central bank said Monday that it pumped cash into the money market in January to meet the liquidity demand from financial institutions.

A total of 700 billion yuan (about 110 billion U.S. dollars) was injected into the market via the medium-term lending facility (MLF) last month to maintain liquidity in the banking system at a reasonably sufficient level, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

The funds will mature in one year at an interest rate of 2.85 percent. Total outstanding MLF loans reached 4.75 trillion yuan as of the end of January. 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.

Another 2.35 billion yuan was lent to financial institutions in January through the standing lending facility to meet their provisional liquidity demand, the PBOC said.