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China's new yuan loans at 1.23 trillion yuan in February, lower than expected
CGTN
China's new yuan-denominated loans total 1.23 trillion yuan in February. /CFP

China's new yuan-denominated loans total 1.23 trillion yuan in February. /CFP

China's new yuan-denominated loans totaled 1.23 trillion yuan (about $195 billion) in February, lower than expected, central bank data showed Friday.

The figure decreased by 125.8 billion yuan from the same period last year, according to China's central bank the People's Bank of China.  

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 9.2 percent year on year to 244.15 trillion yuan ($19.9 trillion) at the end of February, the data showed. The growth rate was 0.6 percentage points lower than that at the end of January, and was 0.9 percentage points lower than during the same period last year.  

The M1, which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, stood at 62.16 trillion yuan ($9.9 trillion) at the end of February. It was up by 4.7 percent year on year.  

The M0, the amount of cash in circulation, went up by 5.8 percent from a year ago to 9.72 trillion yuan at the end of last month.  In February, the central bank withdrew a total of 896.1 billion yuan of net cash from the market.  

Newly added social financing, a measurement of funds that individuals and non-financial firms receive from the financial system, came in at 1.19 trillion yuan last month, 531.5 billion yuan less than the same period last year.  

Thursday's data also showed China's new yuan deposits in February reached 2.54 trillion yuan, up 1.39 trillion yuan from a year earlier.  

By the end of last month, the total outstanding yuan deposits stood at 238.61 trillion yuan, up 9.8 percent year on year.  

In February, renminbi settlements for cross-border trade amounted to 538.9 billion yuan. The central bank has pledged to further improve its regulatory framework of monetary and macro-prudential policies in 2022, as part of efforts to step up counter-cyclical adjustments and curb risk contagion.  

Besides seasonal reason, residents' demand for credit is still weak under the influence of the epidemic, said Ming Ming, chief economist at CITIC Securities, Securities Times reported.

Due to lower-than-expected social financing and credit data, and weak financing needs of the real economy, the market has raised expectations for further reserve requirement ratio cuts, as well as interest rate cuts by the the central bank, said Zhou Maohua, an analyst from China Everbright Bank, according to Securities Times.

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(With input from Xinhua)

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