Money supply growth slows in December

Growth of China's money supply shrank to the year's slowest level in December, the result of the country's tightened financial regulation and deleveraging process, but analysts said the money supply situation will improve this year.

The broad measure of money supply, or M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, had risen by 8.2 percent year-on-year by the end of December - the slowest pace in history, according to data released by the central bank on Friday. It was 3.1 percentage points lower than the figure for that period in 2016. The figure was 9.1 percent in November and 8.8 percent in October.

Last month, banks' new yuan lending, another measure of market liquidity, dropped sharply to 584.4 billion yuan ($90.4 billion), the slowest monthly growth since April 2016, down from 1.12 trillion yuan in November, according to the People's Bank of China, the central bank.