China's Central Bank Drains Liquidity from Market

China's central bank on Thursday drained 10 billion yuan (1.52 billion U.S. dollars) from the financial system through open market operations.

The operations included 30 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos, 30 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos and 10 billion yuan of 28-day reverse repos, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said.

Offset by 80 billion yuan of maturing reverse repos, the operation resulted in a net withdrawal of 10 billion yuan from the market.

The PBOC said earlier that it would conduct open market operations in a flexible way to meet the seasonal liquidity needs of banks near the year end.

China has decided to maintain a prudent and neutral monetary policy in 2018 as the world's second-largest economy strives to balance growth and risk prevention.

"Prudent monetary policy should be kept neutral, the floodgates of monetary supply should be controlled, and credit and social financing should see reasonable growth," said a statement released after the Central Economic Work Conference which concluded Wednesday.