The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, auctioned 12 billion yuan (1.77 billion U.S. dollars) of three-month bills in its regular open market operations Thursday at a yield of 1.5704 percent.

The three-month bill yield has been steady at 1.5704 percent since early June.

The central bank also conducted 91-day repurchase agreement operations on Thursday at a yield of 1.57 percent, taking 30 billion yuan (4.43 billion U.S. dollars) out of the money market.

The PBOC absorbed 2 billion yuan (295 million U.S. dollars) from the money stock this week. This came after the central bank's issuance of 60 billion yuan (8.56 billion U.S. dollars) of bills and repurchase agreements to offset those worth 58 billion yuan (8.85 billion U.S. dollars) that matured this week.

It was third straight week the PBOC has siphoned money from the market but the volume was down sharply from 84 billion yuan (12.4 billion U.S. dollars) last week and 81 billion yuan (12 billion U.S. dollars) the week before that.

A trader of a commercial bank in Shanghai said the money market remained quite loose. The repurchase agreements' weak interest rate indicated lenders had enough liquidity to buy those relatively low-yield assets from the central bank.