China continues momentum on social financing

China's financing activity continues its robust momentum as the country's aggregate social financing — the total amount of financing to the real economy — stood at 16.34 trillion yuan ($2.27 trillion) in the first four months of the year, up by 3.61 trillion yuan from the same period of last year, official data showed.

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said on Wednesday that the country's outstanding aggregate social financing totaled 424 trillion yuan as of the end of April, marking an 8.7 percent year-on-year increase. The growth rate was up to 8.4 percent by the end of March.

The broad money supply, or M2, reached 325.17 trillion yuan at the end of last month, up 8 percent year-on-year, accelerating from 7 percent seen a month earlier.

Nevertheless, the country's new yuan-denominated loans came in at 10.06 trillion yuan in the first four months of the year, the PBOC said. The reading was down from 10.19 trillion yuan for the same period of 2024.