Macao's domestic lending to private sector grows 4.3% in July

Macao's domestic loans to the private sector reached 116.8 billion patacas (14.6 billion U.S. dollars) in July 2010, an increase of 4.3 percent over the previous month, according to the figures released on Thursday by the Monetary Authority of Macao.

Some 35.7 billion patacas (4.5 billion dollars) of these loans were pataca-denominated while 73.7 billion patacas (9.2 billion dollars) were denominated in HK dollar, representing 30.5 percent and 63.1 percent of the total respectively, the figures from the Monetary Authority indicated.

External loans decreased by 3.2 percent month-to-month to 108.1 billion patacas (13.5 billion dollars) in July, of which loans denominated in pataca and HK dollar accounted for 0.8 percent and 42.1 percent of the total respectively, according to the Monetary Authority.

As the growth pace of domestic loans to the private sector was similar to that of resident deposits, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at the end of July 2010 remained virtually unchanged from a month ago at 48.2 percent, the figures showed.

The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors was 71. 5 percent during the period, down 2.3 percentage points from the previous month.

Source:Xinhua