China's money supply growth slowed in September for the fourth month, the central bank said yesterday.
M2, the broadest measure of money supply, rose 15.29 percent to 45.29 trillion yuan (US$6.63 trillion) from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China said yesterday on its Website. M2 gained 16 percent in August.
New yuan lending rose to 374.5 billion yuan last month, up 91 billion yuan from a year ago. It rose to 271.5 billion yuan in August.
The outstanding value of yuan lending rose to 29.65 trillion yuan at the end of September, up 14.48 percent from a year ago. The growth is up 0.19 percentage points over a month ago.
"The slowdown in money supply growth indicated that economic activities have been less active, or corporations were less active in investment," said Lu Zhengwei, chief economist of the Industrial Bank in Shanghai.
The quicker growth in lending was partly driven by more active commercial bills acceptance as city commercial banks use the safer financial instrument to extend credit to small and medium enterprises, Lu said.
In the first nine months, new yuan lending rose to 3.48 trillion yuan, up 120.1 billion yuan from a year ago.
The central bank previously set this year's lending target at 3.63 trillion yuan, the same as that last year. In late July, the central bank increased loan quotas by 5 percent to nationwide banks and by 10 percent to regional banks to boost credit to SMEs which are hard hit by lack of credit.
Total deposits at all financial institutions grew to 46.68 trillion yuan at the end of September, up 18.2 percent from a year ago.
The outstanding yuan deposits rose to 45.49 trillion yuan at the end of September, up 18.79 percent. In the first nine months, yuan deposits rose to 6.56 trillion yuan, up 1.81 trillion yuan from a year ago.
The central bank also said China's foreign-exchange reserves rose to a world record US$1.906 trillion, helping to strengthen the nation's finances as the credit crisis threatens to trigger a global economic slump.
(Shanghai Daily October 15, 2008)
