China Focus: China cuts interest rates again

BEIJING, March 1  (Xinhua) — China’s central bank announced on Saturday that it will slash benchmark deposit and loan interest rates by 25 basis points from March 1, a second such cut in three months, underscoring continuing downward pressure on the world’s second-largest economy.

The cut will bring the one-year deposit rate to 2.5 percent, and the lending rate to 5.35 percent, according to a statement on the website of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

“The focus of the latest adjustment is to keep real interest rate levels accommodative to the changing fundamental trends in growth, inflation and employment,” the bank explained in a separate statement.

But the cut does not represent an adjustment from China’s prudent monetary policy, it reiterated