Financial Institutions Increase Loans

The aggregate local currency loans by China's financial institutions increased by 13.8 percent, or 620.4 billion yuan, during the first half of this year.

The increase was 197.2 billion yuan larger than that of the same period of 1999, said Dai Xianglong, governor of the People's Bank of China, at the press conference Wednesday.

He said that the increase of short-tern loans was 160 billion yuan larger while that of medium-and long-term loans was 40 billion yuan larger, as compared with the same period of last year.

And by the end of June, the household mortgage loans had totaled 213 billion yuan, 66 billion yuan more than the beginning of the year, the governor added. In the first five months of the year, commercial housing sales grew by more than 40 percent in terms of floor space.

Loans for education, automobile and other consumer commodities amounted to 41.1 billion yuan at the end of June, 16.2 billion yuan more than at the beginning of the year.



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