BEIJING, Jun 10 (Reuters) – China’s new bank loans rose unexpectedly in May from the previous month, but overall loan growth continued to slow as the central bank seeks to contain rising debt in the second largest economy in the world.
The Chinese economic authorities have repeatedly promised that they will avoid drastic changes in their monetary policy and that they will keep financing costs low, asking banks to continue to support small businesses, although they should be careful when extending credit in areas of the economy. like real estate.
“The peak of the credit cycle has passed, but the downward trend appears to be more gradual than expected,” said Luo Yunong, fixed income analyst at Industrial Securities.
Chinese banks extended 1.5 trillion yuan ($ 234.76 billion) in new local currency loans in May, up from 1.47 trillion yuan in April and above analyst expectations of 1.41 trillion yuan, according to data released Thursday by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
The figure was also higher than the 1.48 trillion yuan issued in credit in the same month of the previous year, when the monetary policy authorities launched unprecedented measures to confront the crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Loans to families rose to 623.2 billion yuan in May, from 528.3 billion yuan in April; while corporate loans rose to 805.7 billion yuan in the fifth month from 755.2 billion yuan in April.
As expected, the growth of outstanding loans in yuan slowed to 12.2% year-on-year, the slowest pace since February 2020, compared to 12.3% seen in April.
Excluding the fourth month in 2020, Thursday’s reading marked the slowest growth in outstanding credit since 2002, according to Capital Economics.
(Reports by Lusha Zhang and Kevin Yao. Edited in Spanish by Marion Giraldo)
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