China cbank injects 670 bln yuan via reverse repos for week, rate unchanged

SHANGHAI — China’s central bank kept the interest rate on seven-day reverse repurchase agreements unchanged at 2.20% on Friday.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it injected 300 billion yuan ($41.96 billion) into money markets on the day, according to a statement published on its website.

The central bank said the funds were intended to counteract the impact from factors including government bond issuance and corporate income tax settlement and in order to keep banking system liquidity “reasonably ample.”

Friday’s injection has brought the PBOC’s weekly cash injection through open market operations to 670 billion yuan on a net basis, the biggest weekly injection since mid-January, according to Reuters calculations based on official data.

($1 = 7.1500 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Winni Zhou and Andrew Galbraith Editing by Shri Navaratnam)