China's central bank injects liquidity into market in April

BEIJING - China's central bank continued to pump cash into the money market in April to meet the demand for liquidity from financial institutions.

A total of 200 billion yuan ($29.72 billion) was injected into the market via the medium-term lending facility (MLF) last month to maintain liquidity in the banking system at a reasonably sufficient level, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

The funds will mature in one year at an interest rate of 3.3 percent.

Total outstanding MLF loans reached 3.56 trillion yuan as of the end of April.

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.

In April, the PBOC did not inject funds through pledged supplementary lending (PSL) to the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China and the Agricultural Development Bank of China.

Total outstanding PSL loans in the first three months amounted to 3.54 trillion yuan.

Another 14.05 billion yuan was lent to financial institutions through the standing lending facility (SLF) to meet provisional liquidity demand.

The SLF funds involved a 350-million-yuan loan that will mature in seven days and a 13.7-billion-yuan loan that will mature in one month.

The central bank has adopted open market operations more frequently to manage liquidity in a more flexible and targeted manner.

China will keep its prudent monetary policy "neither too tight nor too loose" while maintaining market liquidity at a reasonably ample level in 2019, according to the annual Central Economic Work Conference held last month.