Economists: Interest reforms let market decide

The moves of China's central bank to remove controls on deposit interest rates and lower the one-year benchmark interest rates on Friday are designed to let the market decide financing costs, marking a significant step in overall economic reform, experts said.

The announcement, by the People's Bank of China, came as the bank eliminated the 50 percent over benchmark upper limit for deposit rates as it did for lending rates two years ago.

Now commercial banks can set both their deposit and lending rates freely.