BEIJING, May 24 -- Some 3.3 trillion yuan (504 billion U.S. dollars) worth of bonds were issued in China's interbank bond market last month, including 288.2 billion yuan of treasury bonds and 1.1 trillion yuan of local government bonds, the central bank said on Tuesday.

Turnover in the country's money market grew 46.3 percent from a year earlier but shrank 18 percent from March to 50.9 trillion yuan in April, according to a statement on the website of the People's Bank of China.

In April, the one-month interbank weighted average interest rate offered was 2.11 percent, up 2 basis points from March.

The stock markets were generally sluggish last month. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed at 2938.32 at the end of April, down 2.18 percent from the end of March, while the Shenzhen Component Index retreated 3 percent from one month earlier to 10,141.54.

The daily average volume of the Shanghai stock market dipped 9.6 percent from March to 212.61 billion yuan, whereas that of Shenzhen rose 3.4 percent month on month to 360.4 billion yuan.