BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank on Thursday pumped 50 billion yuan (7.85 billion U.S. dollars) into the market through open market operations.

The operations included 30 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos with an interest rate of 2.55 percent, and 20 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos with an interest rate of 2.7 percent, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said.

On Thursday, previous reverse repos worth 20 billion yuan matured, bringing the net injection to 30 billion yuan.

The central bank has increasingly relied on open market operations for liquidity management, rather than cuts in interest rates or reserve requirement ratios.

China has decided to maintain a prudent and neutral monetary policy in 2018 as it strives to balance growth and risk prevention.