Yuan lending hits 623 billion yuan in Sept

BEIJING - China's new yuan-denominated lending in September stood at 623.2 billion yuan ($98.45 billion), an increase of 153.9 billion yuan from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, announced on Friday.

The new figure brings the nation's total new yuan loans in the first three quarters of the year to 6.72 trillion yuan, up 1.04 trillion yuan year on year, the PBOC data showed.

Preliminary data released by the central bank also showed that social financing, a measure of funds raised by entities in the real economy, hit 1.65 trillion yuan in September, up 404.1 billion yuan from August and 1.22 trillion yuan from a year earlier.

In the first three quarters, the nation's social financing added up to 11.73 trillion yuan, up 1.92 trillion yuan year on year, the data showed.

The central bank said new yuan lending accounted for 57.3 percent of the nation's social financing volume in the first three quarters, down 0.6 percentage point compared to the corresponding period last year.

Analysts said the increases in both new loans and social financing showed that investment projects approved previously by the government, as well as warming property sales, have pushed up capital demand.

Chinese authorities approved 55 infrastructure investment projects worth 1 trillion yuan in early September.

The steady increase in social financing has showed the nation's efforts to stabilize the economy, which slowed to 7.6 percent in the second quarter, marking the slowest pace of growth in more than three years.

Friday's data also showed that new foreign currency-denominated loans hit 176.4 billion yuan last month, up 73.9 billion yuan year on year. The data brings the total foreign currency lending in the first three quarters to 534.3 billion yuan, up 57.3 billion yuan year on year.