China's yuan loans maintain fast growth momentum in first 2 months

Photo shows the headquarters of the People's Bank of China. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

BEIJING, March 15 (Xinhua) -- China's yuan-denominated loans rose by 6.37 trillion yuan (899.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the first two months of this year, maintaining a relatively fast growth momentum, central bank data showed Friday.

China has been adopting proactive monetary policies and intensifying macro-control since the beginning of this year, which has helped consolidate the momentum of economic recovery, experts said.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, climbed 8.7 percent year on year to 299.56 trillion yuan at the end of last month, according to the People's Bank of China.

The M1, which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, stood at 66.59 trillion yuan at the end of February, up 1.2 percent year on year.

The M0, which indicates the amount of cash in circulation, rose by 12.5 percent from the previous year to a total of 12.1 trillion yuan at the end of last month, the data revealed.

Outstanding social financing stood at 385.72 trillion yuan at the end of February, up 9 percent year on year.

Outstanding yuan loans reached 243.96 trillion yuan at the end of February, an increase of 10.1 percent year on year, the data showed.

Experts believed that the reasonable and moderate money supply and the stable scale of social financing and credit effectively met the financing needs of businesses, and helped stimulate the internal impetus of economic development.

Loans in the manufacturing sector have seen solid growth. By the end of February, outstanding medium and long-term loans to the sector came in at 13.13 trillion yuan, an increase of 28.3 percent year on year, central bank data showed.

In the meantime, loan support for weak links in the national economy has been stable. Outstanding loans to micro and small firms, the agricultural sector, and the private sector have all witnessed year-on-year growth by the end of February.

Since the beginning of this year, measures including lowering relending rates for the agriculture sector and small businesses, cutting the reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions and reducing the over-five-year loan prime rate, have all been put forward.

"These measures effectively guided banks to increase credit issuance, and broadened space for lowering corporate financing costs, and continued to reduce the burden on corporations and residents," said Dong Ximiao, chief researcher at Merchants Union Consumer Finance Company Limited.