China's PBOC to Inject 600 Billion Yuan of Liquidity Into Financial System

China's central bank said it would inject 600 billion yuan, equivalent to $82.34 billion, worth of liquidity into the financial system via its medium-term lending facility on Friday.

The People's Bank of China has downplayed the instrument's role in guiding monetary policy in recent months. The central bank in March tweaked the pricing for its one-year loans to commercial lenders, saying it will offer a fixed quantity of loans priced at multiple rates via a bidding process.

The central bank repeated the changes in a brief statement Thursday.

With 100 billion yuan of MLF loans due this month, the PBOC will inject a net 500 billion yuan via the one-year lending tool into markets.

The PBOC has shifted away from using the MLF rate to set benchmark lending rates, and instead uses the seven-day reverse repo rate as its main policy rate.

Write to Singapore Editors at singaporeeditors@dowjones.com