China's central bank announced a 0.3125 percentage point increase in the upper limit for interest rates on one-year US dollar deposits on Wednesday.

From November 18 the rate will be raised to 0.875 percent.

The People's Bank of China will also no longer set upper limits for two-year deposits denominated in US dollar, euro, Japanese yen or Hong Kong dollars.

The rate will instead be decided by commercial banks themselves in an additional move to liberalize interest rates.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2004)