China's central bank data shows the country's new yuan loans in June missed forecasts, while the broader credit measure for June, total social financing, outstripped expectations.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Friday said the new bank loans, which stood at 1.66 trillion yuan (241.3 billion U.S. dollars), rose to a three-month high in June as a result of liquidity-boosting measures. That was to tackle the weakness on the home turf and rising U.S. trade pressure.

The central bank admitted that it has been keeping the interest rates low amid weak domestic demand and global central bank rate cuts. The new yuan loan growth in June was less than that in May. Broad M2 money supply growth was in line with expectations, up 8.5 percent year on year. 

Bond issuance was the highest in value by local governments in June. Corporate bond issuance also picked up in response to falling market interest rates. 

Meanwhile, total social financing stood at 2.26 trillion yuan (328.5 billion U.S. dollars), beating the forecast of 1.95 trillion yuan (about 283.4 billion U.S. dollars). The central bank said that it poured funds into money markets ahead of a seasonal surge in cash demand at the end of June.

Zhou Xuedong, director of General Office at PBOC, explained the uptick in the total social financing: "In the first half of the year, bond financing activity was strong, and the drop in entrusted loans eased, so the drag on total social financing growth was smaller."

Zhou continued that "loans took a 73-percent share in total social financing at the end of June, lower than that at the end of the first quarter. This means there was more direct financing in the credit system."

Sun Guofeng, director of Monetary Policy Department at PBOC, introduced that the central bank has been keeping the interest rates low in China based on the domestic economic picture "regardless of the fact that 11 central banks have cut their rates."

"We saw bigger trading band of the yuan's exchange rate in the first half of the year. In fact, the yuan has been relatively strong against a basket of mainstream currencies," Sun noted.

(CGTN's Xia Cheng also contributed to the story)