The People's Bank of China (PBOC) released first-quarter credit data on Friday and said that the M2 figure, which is known as the broad monetary supply, rose 8.2 percent in March from 8.8 percent in February. 

The reading missed expectations and was the lowest since December. However, new yuan loans stood at 4.9 trillion yuan (around 780.6 billion US dollars), up about 15 percent from one year ago. Meanwhile, China’s total social financing topped 179 trillion yuan (28.5 trillion US dollars) in the first quarter, up 11 percent.

The central bank said the service and high-tech manufacturing sectors saw the fastest new loan growth while credit flowing to overcapacity industries decreased.

According to Ruan Jianhong, the spokeswoman of PBOC, the slowdown is closely related to seasonal factors.

“Compared to last quarter, the M2 rose 8.2 percent in March, 0.1 percentage points higher than that in December. This is the sign of stabilizing, and the result of neutral monetary policy and coordinated financial regulation,” Ruan noted.

She said that one should not pay too much attention to the short-term fluctuation, as it no longer reflects China's economic growth as it once did.

“Generally speaking, the monetary supply and liquidity were accommodative in the first quarter, and conducive to guarding against major financial risks. As the financial market keeps its innovation, the memorability, the controllability, and the correlation to economic growth of the M2 figures have all decreased. We should gradually downplay such quantitative signals to adjust to the need of the quality of growth,” Ruan added.