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2nd Ld: China cuts RRR, lowers interest rates

Xinhua, October 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, decided on Friday to cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) of banks, and benchmark interest rates.

From Saturday, the RRR for financial institutions will be slashed by 0.5 percentage points, to further reduce the cost of financing.

The RRR for qualified financial institutions supporting small and micro businesses and agriculture will be lowered by another 0.5 percentage points, the PBOC announced.

Benchmark interest rates will also be cut, to ensure reasonably adequate liquidity in the banking system.

From Saturday, interest rates for one-year lending and deposits will be cut by 0.25 percentage points to 4.35 percent and 1.5 percent respectively, the PBOC said.

Meanwhile, the central bank announced it would remove the upper limit of the floating range of interest rates for deposits in commercial banks and cooperative financial institutions in rural areas, amid efforts to improve the market-oriented formation mechanism of interest rates.

As China's economy continues to slow and global financial markets fluctuate, these moves aim to establish a sound financial environment for restructuring and steady growth of the economy, the PBOC explained. Endi