BEIJING — China’s central bank boosted liquidity by 120 billion yuan (about $17.5 billion) through open market operations to ease liquidity pressure on Aug 20.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement that it made the operations via seven-day reverse repos with an interest rate of 2.55 percent to offset the impacts from payment for new government bonds.

No previous reverse repos matured on Aug 20, meaning the net market liquidity rose by the same amount.

The PBOC will make policies more forward-looking, flexible and effective, maintain proper control over the floodgate of money supply and keep liquidity at a reasonable and abundant level, according to a quarterly report released earlier this month.

China’s prudent monetary policy will be “kept neutral and be neither too tight nor too loose,” said the report.