BEIJING - China's central bank suspended open market operations on Friday, citing abundant liquidity in the financial system.

"As rising fiscal spending near the end of month offsets maturing reverse repos, the liquidity level in the banking system is relatively high," the People's Bank of China said on its website.

On Friday, 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) of reverse repos matured, meaning that market liquidity dropped by the same amount.

This week, the central bank drained liquidity by a total of 60 billion yuan after new operations were offset by mature reverse repos.

The previous suspension of operations via reverse repos was on June 6, when the central bank injected 498 billion yuan via medium-term lending facility.

China has set the tune of its monetary policy in 2017 as prudent and neutral, keeping an appropriate liquidity level but avoiding excessive liquidity injections.