China boosts property funding with first cut in key loan rate since June [Video]

China’s lenders cut the country’s benchmark five-year loan prime rate for the first time since June, extending Beijing’s efforts to revive the country’s anemic property market.

The Chinese central bank kept its one-year loan prime rate — the peg for most household and corporate loans in China — unchanged at 3.45%. The benchmark five-year loan rate — the peg for most mortgages — was cut by 25 basis points to 3.95%, according to a statement Tuesday from the People’s Bank of China.

The slash in the five-year rate in the monthly fix for February was larger than expectations for a reduction of between five to 15 basis points in a Reuters poll of economists. This was also the largest one-time cut in the five-year rate and the first since the five-year rate was last trimmed in June by 10 basis points.

“The asymmetric moves signal authorities’ continued preference for targeted easing, and its desire to ramp up support for the …