Photo: Xinhua

 
China's central bank continued to pump cash into the money market in November to meet liquidity demand from financial institutions.

A total of 600 billion yuan (about 85.4 billion U.S. dollars) was injected into the market via the medium-term lending facility (MLF) last month to maintain liquidity in the banking system at a reasonably sufficient level, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

The funds will mature in one year at an interest rate of 3.25 percent.

Total outstanding MLF loans reached 3.56 trillion yuan as of the end of November.

The MLF tool was introduced in 2014 to help commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank using securities as collateral.

In November, the PBOC also injected 4.8 billion yuan of funds through pledged supplementary lending to the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China and the Agricultural Development Bank of China.

Another 62.25 billion yuan was lent to financial institutions through the standing lending facility to meet provisional liquidity demand.

The central bank has adopted open market operations more frequently to manage liquidity in a more flexible and targeted manner.

China has pledged to keep its prudent monetary policy "neither too tight nor too loose" while maintaining market liquidity at a reasonably ample level in 2019.