Paramilitary police officers stand guard in front of the headquarters of the People’s Bank of China, the central bank (PBOC), in Beijing, China Sep 30, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File photo
SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE — China’s central bank on Friday left a key policy rate unchanged as expected when rolling over maturing medium-term loans.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it was keeping the rate on 387 billion yuan ($53.80 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions unchanged at 2.5 percent from the previous operation.
In a Reuters poll of 36 market watchers, 32, or 89 percent , of all respondents, expected the central bank to keep the borrowing cost of the one-year MLF loans unchanged.
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With 481 billion yuan worth of MLF loans set to expire this month, the operation resulted in a net 94 billion yuan fund withdrawal from the banking system.
The central bank also injected 13 billion yuan through seven-day reverse repos while keeping the borrowing cost unchanged at 1.8 percent , it said in a statement.
($1 = 7.1932 Chinese yuan)