The People's Bank of China maintained the base interest rate for loans for a period of one year at 3.45% per annum. The rate on five-year loans was left at 3.95%.
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Bank rates
Both rates are record lows, indicating Beijing's continued efforts to stimulate economic recovery amid problems in the real estate sector and deflationary risks and unstable dynamics of foreign trade.
Analysts, whose consensus forecast is provided by Trading Economics, on average also expected both rates to remain at the same level in April.
LPR became a benchmark in August 2019 after the Chinese Central Bank carried out interest rate reform. Since 2020, the NBK has required banks to focus specifically on LPR when determining rates on new loans. The five-year rate directly affects the cost of mortgage loans, the annual rate affects all others.
Infusion of money
A week earlier, the PBOC injected 100 billion yuan ($13.82 billion) into the financial system as part of the medium-term program lending (MLF) and kept the rate on one-year loans issued within the MLF at the level of 2.5%.
