BEIJING — China's central bank said on April 18 that it had handed over 600 billion yuan (about $94.1 billion) in surplus profits to the country's central budget as of mid-April.

The funds will mainly be used to facilitate VAT credit refunds and increase the central government's transfer payments to local governments, with an effect roughly equivalent to that of the country's recently-announced move to cut the reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions by 0.25 percentage points, according to the People's Bank of China.

For the whole year, the central bank plans to turn over more than 1.1 trillion yuan in surplus profits to the central budget to support enterprises, stabilize employment, and ensure people's well-being.

The central bank said it would speed up the profit remittance. It added that the synergy between the remittance and other monetary policies would help maintain reasonable and ample liquidity in the market.