At the 2026 Financial Street Forum, Pan Gongsheng of the People's Bank of China outlined the roadmap for interest rate liberalization reform: the monetary policy framework is in a stage of continuous improvement of price-based regulation, and there are plans to switch the core open market operation instrument from 7-day reverse repos to overnight repos at an opportune time, making the overnight repo rate the main policy rate.
This adjustment is an iterative optimization within the existing price-based regulation framework. In the future, corporate loans, bonds, and interest rate derivatives may use closer reference rates, making it easier to hedge interest rate risk.