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China yuan lending reaches $1.5 trillion in 2013
January 15, 2014, 5:18 am

A staff member counts money at Matou Town Rural Credit Cooperatives on June 20, 2011 in Linyi, Shandong Province of China [Getty Images]

A staff member counts money at Matou Town Rural Credit Cooperatives on June 20, 2011 in Linyi, Shandong Province of China [Getty Images]

The Chinese Central Bank was successful in attempts to rein in debt levels by containing credit expansion, shows new data.

China’s new yuan-denominated lending was just under 8.9 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion) in 2013, up 688 billion yuan year on year, the central bank announced on Wednesday.

China’s banks made 482.5 billion yuan ($79.9 billion) worth of new yuan loans in December, lower than a forecast of 600 billion yuan.

New loans denominated in foreign currencies hit 584.8 billion in 2013, representing a year-on-year decrease of 331.5 billion yuan, according to Sheng Songcheng, financial official at the People’s Bank of China.

Total social financing, a measure of funds raised by entities in the real economy, stood at a record high at 17.3 trillion yuan last year, up 1.53 trillion yuan from a year earlier.

The new yuan lending took about 51.4 per cent of the social financing, the lowest amount in history and 0.6 percentage point lower than the previous year.