PBOC injects 67 billion yuan into banks
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China's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), pumped 67 billion yuan (10.3 billion U.S. dollars) of liquidity into banks this week after hiking its reserve requirement ratio and a decline of outstanding funds.
With its sales of three-month bills worth 20 billion yuan to commercial banks on Thursday, the PBOC completed open market operations this week, realizing a net injection of 67 billion yuan in liquidity into the banking system after offsetting bills and repurchase agreements that had already matured.
Last week, China's central bank drained 30 billion yuan of liquidity from the money market through open market operations.
Analysts said the PBOC's liquidity injection came after the bank locked up about 370 billion yuan in liquidity by raising its reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points beginning Thursday.
A decline of outstanding funds for foreign exchange in April also helped relieve pressure on the PBOC to tighten liquidity through open market operations, said Liu Junyu, an analyst from the China Merchants Bank.
"We need more data to conclude whether or not the PBOC's move reflects a tendency (of loosening)," Liu said.
Outstanding funds for foreign exchange fell by 23.8 percent from March to hit 310.72 billion yuan in April, meaning that the PBOC bought 310.72 billion yuan in foreign exchange from commercial banks last month to offset capital inflow, which was comprised of trade surpluses and speculative money, according to the PBOC.
