BEIJING - The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, on Thursday said it had adopted measures to ensure ample liquidity of the interbank market in August.

The PBOC said in a statement that it had pumped 289 billion yuan ($43.27 billion) through medium-term lending facility (MLF) to meet the cash demands of financial institutions last month, bringing the total outstanding MLF loans to 1.75 trillion yuan.

Lenders were encouraged to increase financial support for small firms, agriculture and other money-starved sectors, according to the statement.

The MLF tool was first introduced in 2014 to help commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank by using securities as collateral.

The central bank has increasingly relied on open market operations to provide liquidity, rather than solely relying on cuts in interest rate and deposit reserve ratio.

In addition to MLF, pledged supplementary lending (PSL) and standing lending facility (SLF) were also adopted in August.

Liquidity injected through PSL to China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank of China and the Export-Import Bank of China stood at 68.3 billion yuan. Outstanding PSL loans amount to 1.88 trillion yuan.

The funds were used to support projects such as substandard housing renovation and major water conservation projects, the PBOC said.

Meanwhile, 800 million yuan was granted to financial institutions via SLF last month to meet provisional liquidity demand. There were no outstanding SLF loans by the end of August.