Chinese Banks' New Yuan-Denominated Lending Increases

By Samantha Tan Chiew Ting BEIJING, Jan 15 (Bernama) -- China's new yuan-denominated lending last year hit 11.72 trillion yuan (US$1.79 trillion), up 1.81 trillion yuan from a year earlier, Xinhua News Agency said Friday. "In December, banks' new lending reached 597.8 billion yuan, down 345.3 billion yuan from the same month of 2014. "The M2, which is a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 13.3 per cent year-on-year to 139.23 trillion yuan at the end of December," Xinhua said, quoting China's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBOC). It said the narrow measure of money supply, or M1, which covered cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 15.2 per cent year-on-year to 40.1 trillion yuan at end-December. "PBOC's data showed total social financing in 2015 stood at 15.41 trillion yuan, 467.5 billion yuan less than 2014," the news agency said. Yuan-denominated deposits at China's banks increased to 14.97 trillion yuan in 2015, 1.94 trillion yuan more than the previous year. By the end of December 2015, China's foreign exchange reserves stood at US$3.33 trillion. -- BERNAMA