BEIJING, April 20 (Xinhua) -- China's one-year loan prime rate (LPR) came in at 3.85 percent Monday, down from 4.05 percent a month earlier, according to the National Interbank Funding Center.
The above-five-year LPR fell 0.1 percentage points from the previous reading to 4.65 percent.
China's central bank announced a plan to reform the LPR mechanism in August 2019, to better reflect market changes in its latest move to guide borrowing costs lower to support the real economy.
Under the revamped mechanism, the LPRs, released on the 20th day of every month, are based on rates of the central bank's open market operations, especially the medium-term lending facility (MLF) rates.
The People's Bank of China lowered the rate of 100 billion yuan (about 14.15 billion U.S. dollars) worth of one-year MLF to financial institutions by 20 basis points to 2.95 percent amid a slew of monetary policy maneuvers to mitigate impact of COVID-19 on the world's second largest economy.
The first new one-year LPR, released on Aug. 20 last year, stood at 4.25 percent, 10 basis points lower than the central bank benchmark lending rate, while the first new above-five-year LPR was slightly lower than the 4.9-percent central bank benchmark rate.
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