China boosts liquidity with open market operations

BEIJING - China's central bank Tuesday pumped 170 billion yuan (about $26.6 billion) into the financial system through open market operations.

The operations included 80 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos, 80 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos and 10 billion yuan of 63-day reverse repos, the People's Bank of China said on its website.

The interest rates for seven-day, 14-day and 63-day operations were unchanged at 2.5 percent, 2.65 percent and 2.95 percent respectively.

On Tuesday, previous reverse repos worth 170 billion yuan matured, meaning that there was no net injection.

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

This year, monetary policy will be kept neutral and the money supply should be controlled, according to the Central Economic Work Conference held last month.