China’s 7-day repo fixing interest rate rose to 5.5% today, the highest level since late2014. This followed PBOC’s statement last Thursday signaling a deviation from theprevious framework of regarding interbank rates as de facto “policy rates”. Reflectingthe prospective quarter-end MPA (macro-prudential assessment) examination andcontinued tightening bias from the PBOC, interbank rates may remain fairly volatilein the coming days, although we do not expect such elevated rates to be sustained.