China’s central bank injected medium-term loans into the banking system on Thursday, while keeping the interest rate unchanged for a whole year.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in an online statement it was keeping the rate on 150 billion yuan ($22.97 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions steady at 2.95% from previous operations.

The PBOC added the operation was a rollover of 100 billion yuan of maturing MLF loans due on Thursday, while also covering 56.1 billion yuan worth of targeted medium-term lending facility (TMLF) expiring later this month, according to the statement.

The central bank also injected another 10 billion yuan worth of seven-day reverse repos into the banking system on the day, offseting same amount of such short-term liquidity tool due on Thursday.

($1 = 6.5292 Chinese yuan)

– Reuters