China central bank makes biggest weekly cash drain via OMO since February

China’s central bank skipped open market operations on Friday, making the biggest weekly net fund drain in 4-1/2 months, reported Reuters.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said Friday’s move was due to “relatively high banking system liquidity level to absorb factors including maturing reverse repos and government bond issuance”, according to a statement on its website.

A batch of RMB 110 billion worth of reverse repos are due to mature on Friday. For the week, the PBOC drained a net RMB 490 billion ($69.35 billion), the biggest weekly net drain since the week ending on Feb. 21, compared with an injection of RMB 480 billion on a net basis a week earlier.