China’s central bank on Friday lowered the benchmark lending rate for loans with tenors of five years or more, a move that could help lower financing costs for struggling businesses.
The People’s Bank of China said the five-year loan prime rate was cut to 4.45%, down from 4.6% previously.
The cut was unexpected after the central bank kept the key policy rate–the medium-term lending facility that is used to price LPR by commercial banks–unchanged earlier in May.
Meanwhile, the PBOC kept the one-year LPR unchanged at 3.7%, the central bank said in a statement.