China’s central bank yesterday slashed key interest rates in a bid to kick-start the country’s stuttering economic recovery, as data showed factory output and retail sales for last month came in weaker than analysts’ expectations.
The People’s Bank of China cut its policy rates, bringing its seven-day reverse repurchase rate a key rate at which the central bank provides short-term liquidity to banks to a new low.
It also cut its one-year medium-term lending facility to 2.75 percent from 2.85 percent and injected an extra 400 billion yuan (US$59.15 billion) in lending markets, surprising forecasters, although some analysts believe this