China's new yuan loans rise in March

BEIJING - China's new yuan-denominated lending in March amounted to 1.37 trillion yuan ($210 billion), 188.3 billion yuan more than a year earlier, official data showed on Friday.

In the first quarter, China's new yuan loans rose to 4.61 trillion yuan, up 930.1 billion yuan from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement on its website.

Outstanding lending stood at 98.56 trillion yuan at the end of March, up 14.7 percent year on year.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 13.4 percent year on year to 144.62 trillion yuan at the end of March, according to the statement.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 22.1 percent year on year to 41.16 trillion yuan.

The M0, the amount of money in circulation, stood at 6.47 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.4 percent. The central bank pumped 143.5 billion yuan of cash into the market in the first quarter.

Newly-added social financing, a measurement of funds that non-financial firms and households get from the financial system, in March stood at 2.34 trillion yuan, 1.51 trillion yuan more than February and 1.09 trillion yuan more than the same period last year.

In the first quarter, newly-added social finance came in 6.59 trillion yuan, 1.93 trillion yuan more than the same period last year.

At the end of March, yuan-denominated deposits stood at 141.12 trillion yuan, up 13 percent year on year. In the first quarter, yuan-denominated deposits gained 5.41 trillion yuan.

By the end of March, total outstanding loans stood at 103.79 trillion yuan, up 13.4 percent from the previous year, the PBOC said.