China Maintains Loan Prime Rates
(RTTNews) - China left its main lending rates unchanged on Tuesday, as widely expected, after lowering the rates last month.
The People's Bank of China retained its five-year loan prime rate, or LPR, the benchmark for mortgage rates, at 4.30 percent.
The bank had reduced the five-year LPR rate by 15 basis points each in August and May and by 5 basis points in January.
The one-year loan prime rate was left unchanged at 3.65 percent after cutting it by 5 basis points in August.
The LPR is fixed monthly based on the submission of 18 banks, though Beijing has influence over the rate-setting. The LPR replaced the central bank's traditional benchmark lending rate in August 2019.
Earlier this month, the one-year medium-term lending facility, the forerunner of LPR, was kept unchanged.
On Monday, the PBoC had lowered the rate on 14-day reverse repo operations to 2.15 percent from 2.25 percent. The bank injected CNY 10 billion via 14-day reverse repos and CNY 2 billion through 7-day reverse repo operations.
The recent tightening stance of PBoC's major counterparts has resulted in the yuan's depreciation.
Despite the weakness in the currency, markets widely expect policymakers to respond with more measures as the economy struggles to achieve growth target of around 5.5 percent this year.
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