Chinese central bank drains 80b yuan from money market

BEIJING — China's central bank drained 80 billion yuan ($12.1 billion) from the financial system through open market operations on Monday, with the volume of maturing securities exceeding new injections.

The People's Bank of China pumped 200 billion yuan through reverse repos, with 280 billion yuan of contracts maturing, leading to a net withdrawal of 80 billion yuan.

The operations included 160 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos priced to yield 2.6 percent, and 40 billion yuan of 28-day contracts with a yield of 2.75 percent.

The central bank data showed a total of 680 billion yuan of reverse repos were set to mature this week.

The central bank has increasingly relied on open market operations for liquidity management, rather than cuts in interest rates or reserve requirement ratios.

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