BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank injected liquidity into the money market through reverse repos Thursday.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted 250 billion yuan (37 billion U.S. dollars) of seven-day reverse repos at an interest rate of 2.55 percent and 150 billion yuan of 28-day reverse repos at 2.85 percent.

Previous reverse repos worth 20 billion yuan matured Thursday, meaning that the net market injection came in at 380 billion yuan.

The PBOC said in a statement that Thursday's operation was aimed at maintaining reasonable and sufficient liquidity in the banking system.

Reverse repos enable the central bank to purchase securities from commercial banks through bidding with an agreement to sell them back in the future.