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BEIJING - The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, auctioned 12 billion yuan ($1.77 billion) of three-month bills in its regular open market operations Thursday at a yield of 1.5704 percent.
The three-month bill yield has been steady at 1.5704 percent since early June.
The PBOC absorbed 2 billion yuan ($295 million) from the money stock this week. This came after the central bank's issuance of 60 billion yuan ($8.56 billion) of bills and repurchase agreements to offset those worth 58 billion yuan ($8.85 billion) that matured this week.
It was third straight week the PBOC has siphoned money from the market but the volume was down sharply from 84 billion yuan ($12.4 billion) last week and 81 billion yuan ($12 billion) the week before that.
A trader of a commercial bank in Shanghai said the money market remained quite loose. The repurchase agreements' weak interest rate indicated lenders had enough liquidity to buy those relatively low-yield assets from the central bank.