China's new loans reach 1.32 trillion yuan

BEIJING -- China's new yuan-denominated lending reached 1.32 trillion yuan ($216 billion) in January, up 246.9 billion yuan year on year, the central bank said on Saturday.

The country's social financing, a measure of funds raised by entities through bank credit and other means, amounted to 2.58 trillion yuan last month, surging 1.33 trillion yuan from December and up 39.9 billion yuan from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement.

M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 13.2 percent year on year to 112.35 trillion yuan at the end of January.

The growth rate was down 0.2 percentage point from the end of 2013 and down 2.7 percentage points from the end of January 2013.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, expanded 1.2 percent to 31.49 trillion yuan at the end of last month.