Macao's broad money supply falls in April

MACAO - Macao's broad money supply fell 0.2 percent month on month to 698.1 billion patacas (about $87.3 billion) in April with a stable share of patacas, the special administrative region's monetary watchdog said Friday.

According to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, the currency in circulation rose 0.5 percent whereas demand deposits dropped 3.0 percent. M1 thus decreased 2.1 percent from one month earlier.

Meanwhile, quasi-monetary liabilities edged up by 0.1 percent. The sum of these two items, broad money supply or M2, fell 0.2 percent to 698.1 billion patacas.

On an annual basis, M1 dropped 2.5 percent whereas M2 grew 2.3 percent.

The shares of pataca, Hong Kong dollar, renminbi and US dollar in M2 were 34.8 percent, 50.0 percent, 5.4 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively.

Resident deposits decreased 0.2 percent from the preceding month to 679.1 billion patacas while non-resident deposits rose 1.9 percent to 361.2 billion patacas.

Meanwhile, public sector deposits with the banking sector edged down by 0.1 percent to 263.9 billion patacas.

As a result, total deposits in the banking sector increased 0.4 percent from a month earlier to 1,304.2 billion patacas.

Domestic loans to the private sector grew 0.2 percent from a month ago to 541.4 billion patacas, while external loans also rose 4.7 percent to 738.9 billion patacas.

As a result, total loans to the private sector went up by 2.8 percent from a month earlier to 1,280.3 billion patacas.

At the end of April 2021, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector rose from 57.2 percent at the end of March to 57.4 percent. Meanwhile, the ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors increased from 95.9 percent to 98.2 percent.