IN BRIEF (Page 13)

Agriculture loans up

Chinese banks granted 2 trillion yuan new loans to farmers and agriculture-related business last year, accounting for over one-fifth of the total new credit released in 2009, the central bank said yesterday. By the third quarter of last year, a total of 8.79 trillion yuan worth of loans were related to agriculture, accounting for 21.2 percent of all outstanding loans, it said.

CCB auto financing unit