Post A staff member wearing a face mask arranges stacks of Chinese yuan banknotes at a bank in Nantong, Jiangsu province, China January 30, 2020. Picture taken January 30, 2020. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT. China kept its benchmark lending rate for corporate and household loans the same for a ninth straight month at its January fixing on Wednesday, matching market expectations. The one-year loan prime rate (LPR) was kept “Commercial banks left the loan prime rate on hold. But with monetary conditions already being tightened in practice and underlying inflation set to rebound, we think it is still likely that the [People’s Bank of China] opts to formally hike rates later this year,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics.