Briefly

PBOC conducts central bank bill swap

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, conducted this year's fifth central bank bill swap operation on Thursday to improve the liquidity of perpetual bonds issued by commercial banks. The CBS, valued at 5 billion yuan ($780.9 million), is open to primary dealers for bidding at a fixed rate of 0.1 percent, the central bank said in a statement. The swap will be due on Aug 27, it said. The CBS allows dealers to swap the perpetual bonds they hold for central bank bills, which will boost market demand for perpetual bonds but have a neutral impact on liquidity in the banking system.

Pinduoduo revenue rises 239% in Q1

Pinduoduo Inc, the Nasdaq-listed Chinese e-commerce platform, said its revenue rose 239 percent on a yearly basis during the first three months of the year. Total revenue for the quarter ending March 31 stood at 22.16 billion yuan ($3.47 billion), according to the company's unaudited first quarter financial results. The revenue surge was mainly due to the strong growth in revenue from online marketing technology services. During the first quarter, the platform's revenue from online marketing technology services stood at 14.11 billion yuan, up 157 percent from a year earlier.

Xinhua