BEIJING, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank pumped cash into the money market in January to meet liquidity demand from financial institutions.
A total of 300 billion yuan (about 43.3 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 3.99 trillion yuan as of the end of January.
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 January, the PBOC also injected 20 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 36.05 billion yuan was lent to financial institutions through the standing lending facility to meet provisional liquidity demand.