BEIJING: China’s central bank today said it had cut two key benchmark interest rates, as Beijing looks to boost sluggish spending in the world’s second-largest economy.
The one-year Loan Prime Rate (LPR), which constitutes the benchmark for the most advantageous rates lenders can offer to businesses and households, was cut from 3.35% to 3.1.
The five-year LPR, the benchmark for mortgage loans, was cut from 3.85 to 3.6.
Both rates were last cut in July and are sitting at historic lows.
The cuts come just days after China posted its slowest quarterly growth in a year and a half, underlining the deep economic woes the country faces.
Leaders are targeting annual growth of 5% this year, but that goal is being challenged by weak consumption and a prolonged and debilitating debt crisis in the country’s colossal property sector.