China's August new yuan loans nearly double from July

A clerk counts yuan bills at a bank in Huaibei, East China's Anhui province. [Photo/IC]

BEIJING - China's new yuan-denominated lending stood at 702.5 billion yuan ($114.2 billion) in August, nearly double that in July, the central bank said on Friday.

In July, China's new yuan loans plunged to 385.2 billion yuan, from the 1.08 trillion yuan issued in new loans in June, raising market concerns that the world's second-largest economy may be stuck in a period of weak demand.

The People's Bank of China said in an online statement that new yuan loans in August were 10.3 billion lower than in the same period last year.

M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 12.8 percent year on year to 119.75 trillion yuan at the end of August, it said.

The growth rate slowed 0.7 percentage points month to month from July, and 1.9 percentage points year on year from a year earlier.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 5.7 percent year on year to 33.20 trillion yuan at the end of last month.

In another statement, the central bank said China's social financing in August, a measure of funds raised by entities through bank credit and other means, stood at 957.4 billion yuan, more than triple the 273.1 billion yuan of social financing seen in July.

The figure, however, was nearly 40 percent less than the 1.58 trillion yuan of last August.