First time: The People's Bank of China decided to raise the benchmark interest rate of RMB deposits and loans of financial institutions from February 9, 201/kloc-0. The benchmark interest rates for one-year deposits and loans of financial institutions were raised by 0.25 percentage points respectively. The reason is that gold futures hit a three-week high on Tuesday, and the Bank of China decided to raise interest rates to ease inflationary pressure.

Second time: The People's Bank of China decided to raise the benchmark interest rate of RMB deposits and loans of financial institutions from April 6, 201/kloc-0. The benchmark interest rates for one-year deposits and loans of financial institutions were raised by 0.25 percentage points respectively. The reason is that spot gold hit 1 138.50 USD/oz on April 6, which is a five-week high since March 4.

Third time: The People's Bank of China decided to raise the benchmark interest rate of RMB deposits and loans of financial institutions from July 7, 201/kloc-0. The benchmark interest rates for one-year deposits and loans of financial institutions were raised by 0.25 percentage points respectively. The reason is that the Bank of China fine-tuned its monetary policy to alleviate the worsening problem of negative real interest rate and avoid the outflow of deposits from the banking system.