BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank conducted 697 billion yuan (about 97.2 billion U.S. dollars) of 7-day reverse repos at an interest rate of 1.5 percent on Wednesday.

The move aims to offset the impact of concentrated maturities of reverse repos in the open market and other factors, and to keep liquidity in the banking system at an adequate level, the central bank said.

A reverse repo is a process in which the central bank purchases securities from commercial banks through bidding, with an agreement to sell them back in the future. ■