China again raises interest rates as inflation rages

HONG KONG — China staged its third interest rate increase since October on Tuesday, the latest sign of the authorities’ intensifying efforts to temper the blistering pace of economic growth and prevent already worrisome inflation levels from escalating further.

The central bank in Beijing raised its benchmark one-year deposit rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3 percent, and its one-year lending rate by a similar amount, to 6.06 percent.

The timing of the announcement, at the very end of the Lunar New Year holiday, which has kept mainland Chinese markets shut for the past week, was in line with what many analysts had expected.

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