China central bank injects money into market

BEIJING - China's central bank conducted cash injection via open market operations to ease liquidity on Monday.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted 40 billion yuan ($5.8 billion) of reverse repos.

The injection saw a net 30 billion yuan in cash pumped into the market on Monday, offset by 10 billion yuan in maturing reverse repos.

The operations included 10 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos priced to yield 2.45 percent, and 30 billion yuan of 14-day contracts with a yield of 2.6 percent, according to a central bank statement.

The money market will see 410 billion yuan of repos, reverse repos and medium-term lending facility (MLF) mature this week.

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.

China set the tone of its monetary policy in 2017 as prudent and neutral, keeping an appropriate liquidity level but avoiding excessive liquidity injections.