China c.bank 1-year bill yield flat at sale

SHANGHAI, April 13 (Reuters) - China's central bank auctioned 45 billion yuan ($6.59 billion) of one-year bills in its regular open market operations on Tuesday at a yield that was unchanged from last week, traders said, in line with market expectations.

Most traders expected this week's relatively smaller one-year bill issuance of 45 billion yuan, compared with last week's 60 billion yuan, would let the People's Bank of China (PBOC) keep the yield unchanged at 1.9264 percent and avoid having to guide it higher to bolster demand.

The auction yield on one-year bills has been at 1.9264 percent since mid-January.

A total of 228 billion yuan in PBOC bills and repos will mature this week.

Last week, the central bank drained a net 110 billion yuan from the market, the seventh week of net drains, and resumed the sale of three-year bills after a two-year suspension during the financial crisis. The three-year bills will be sold once every two weeks.

($1=6.825 Yuan)

(Reporting by Qu Weizhi and Karen Yeung; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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