China's financing activity expands steadily

China's financing activity expanded steadily in 2023 as official data showed the country's outstanding aggregate social financing — the total amount of financing to the real economy — came in at 378.09 trillion yuan ($52.74 trillion) as of the end of 2023, up 9.5 percent year-on-year.

The growth rate was generally stable compared with 9.6 percent seen at the end of 2022 and 9.4 percent a month earlier, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said on Friday.

The increment in aggregate social financing reached 35.59 trillion yuan last year, up by 3.41 trillion yuan compared with 2022, the central bank said. In December, the increment came in at 1.94 trillion yuan, up 616.9 billion yuan year-on-year, indicating that the financial system is providing solid support for the real economy.

Loan growth remained buoyant as the increment in yuan-denominated loans came in at 1.17 trillion yuan in December. The figure was down by 240.1 billion yuan from a year ago but still relatively high given last year's high comparison base and was up from 1.09 trillion yuan in November. 

The broad money supply, or M2, stood at 292.27 trillion yuan as of the end of last year, up 9.7 percent year-on-year. The growth rate was down from 10 percent a month earlier and 11.8 percent a year ago.