Central Bank of China injects liquidity into markets

The Central Bank of China has strengthened liquidity support for the banking system by increasing medium-term policy loans (MLF), but as expected, it did not change the MLF interest rate.

In a statement, the Central Bank of China announced that it had conducted a medium-term lending facility (MLF) operation worth 789 billion yuan (107.96 billion dollars) to maintain sufficient liquidity in the banking system. It kept the one-year policy loan (MLF) interest rate at 2.50%, unchanged from the previous operation.

MLF loans worth 500 billion yuan were due to mature this week.

Xing Zhaopeng, Senior China Strategist at ANZ, stated that although the Central Bank of China did not change the MLF interest rate today, they do not rule out the possibility of a 5-basis-point cut in the 1-year loan prime rate (LPR) on Friday.