BEIJING - China's central bank Monday injected 120 billion yuan ($17.65 billion) into the financial system via open market operations to ease liquidity pressure.

The operations included 50 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos, 40 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos, and 30 billion yuan of 28-day contracts, with interest rates of 2.45, 2.6, and 2.75 percent, respectively, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on its website.

The PBOC attributed the new operations to a huge decline in overall liquidity due to factors including payments for government bonds.

Offset by 10 billion yuan of maturing reverse repos, the PBOC injected a net liquidity of 110 billion yuan into the market through reverse repos on Monday.

China has set the tone of its monetary policy in 2017 as prudent and neutral, keeping an appropriate liquidity level but avoiding excessive liquidity injections.