China kept its benchmark interest rate for corporate and household lending unchanged from the previous month as the market expected, data from the National Interbank Funding Center (NIFC) showed on March 21.

The one-year loan prime rate (LPR), a market-based benchmark lending rate, was held at 3.7 percent, while the over-five-year LPR, on which many lenders base their mortgage rates, remained at 4.6 percent.