PBOC pumps record liquidity into market

BEIJING - The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, stepped up its efforts in injecting a record amount of cash flow into banks through open market operations this week.

After completing seven-day reverse repurchase agreement (repo) operations worth 58 billion yuan and two-week reverse repo operations worth 115 billion yuan on Thursday, the PBOC injected 379 billion yuan (60.2 billion US dollars) of liquidity into the money market this week, marking an all-time weekly high.

The yield for seven-day reverse repos stood unchanged at 3.35 percent, while that for 14-day reverse repos stayed flat at 3.45 percent.

Since June this year, the central bank has resorted to reverse repos, a more cautious, targeted and short-term tool than lowering banks' reserve requirement by buying securities held by commercial banks to improve the cash flow in the money market.

In China's interbank market, the overnight Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (Shibor), which measures the cost of interbank borrowing as a key barometer of liquidity, went up 8.83 basis points to 3.0433 percent on Thursday.

The one-week Shibor rose 20.4 basis points to 3.4223 percent, indicating that short-term liquidity is a little tight in the money market.

However, the two-week Shibor fell 60.75 basis points to 3.7492 percent, while the one-month Shibor dropped 21.41 basis points to 4.0034 percent.