Bank loans to small firms rise in H1

BEIJING -- Banks in China made more loans to small and micro-sized enterprises in the first half of this year while reducing their lending to the property sector, according to a report by the People's Bank of China on Thursday.

Outstanding loans to small firms by all banking institutions stood at 10.87 trillion yuan ($1.72 trillion) at the end of June, up 21.4 percent year-on-year, the PBOC said in a report on the direction of China's loan investment.

The growth rate of lending to small companies was 10.1 and 5.9 percentage points higher than those to large and medium-sized enterprises, respectively, according to the PBOC data.

Property loans outstanding rose 565.3 billion yuan to 11.32 trillion yuan at the end of June. The new property lending was 227.1 billion yuan less than a year ago.

However, banks and other financial institutions extended far more loans to government-subsidized housing projects, with loans outstanding in this regard surging 62.7 percent year-on-year to 478.4 billion yuan.

According to the PBOC data, all loans outstanding among the country's banking sector amounted to 59.64 trillion yuan, up 16 percent year-on-year.