China's central bank held its Loan Prime Rate steady for a 16th straight month, even as it guided the yuan to its strongest level since February 2023 ahead of the Xi-Trump summit, a move funded by a jump in short-term liquidity injections and paired with a foreign-bank outreach push.
Xi Jinping heads to Washington for talks with President Trump after the PBOC held loan prime rates for a 16th month and guided the yuan through its longest run of firmer fixings since late 2023. Source
China's central bank left both benchmark lending rates untouched on Saturday for a 16th straight month, holding the one-year Loan Prime Rate (LPR) at 3.00% and the over-five-year rate at 3.50%, exactly as all 21 economists in a Reuters survey expected. The National Interbank Funding Center fixing was a formality. The more interesting number sits in the currency market, where the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has now guided the yuan's daily reference rate stronger for 10 consecutive sessions, pinning USD/CNY at its firmest level since February 2023 just as Xi Jinping and Donald Trump prepare to meet.
