Nov credit shortfall due to outbreaks

China's credit growth fell short of market expectations in November despite improvements from a month earlier, highlighting the need to launch more measures to expand credit demand and stabilize the economy, experts said on Tuesday.

The country's new yuan-denominated loans — a key measure of credit growth — totaled 1.21 trillion yuan ($173.3 billion) in November, up by 594.8 billion yuan compared with October but down by 59.6 billion yuan year-on-year, showed data from the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank.

November's reading was lower than the market estimate of about 1.3 trillion yuan. Also missing market expectations, the increment in aggregate social financing — a broader gauge that covers the total amount of financing to the real economy — came in at 1.99 trillion yuan in November, down by 610.9 billion yuan from a year ago, the PBOC data showed on Monday.

Citing the data, Wen Bin, chief economist at China Minsheng Bank, said repeated COVID-19 outbreaks and other uncertainties have continued to disrupt the recovery in credit expansion.

"More policy efforts are needed to consolidate the foundation for the economy to pick up and drive a steady credit expansion," Wen said.

The year-on-year decline in new yuan-denominated loans in November was mainly attributable to a lackluster recovery in loans to households as home sales weakness continued while COVID-19 uncertainties constrained consumer spending, experts said.

New medium to long-term lending to households — a proxy for mortgages — came in at 210.3 billion yuan last month, down 371.8 billion yuan from a year ago, according to the central bank.

By contrast, new loans to the corporate sector increased by 315.8 billion yuan year-on-year to 883.7 billion yuan in November, as lending to ensure housing project delivery accelerated while funding support for infrastructure projects continued.

Looking ahead, more measures might be in the pipeline to ramp up lending to infrastructure projects and reduce financing costs for corporate and household sectors, helping credit expansion regain momentum soon, said Wang Qing, chief macroeconomic analyst at Golden Credit Rating International.

"Cutting the over-five-year loan prime rate would be key to stabilizing the housing market and driving a pickup in medium to long-term borrowing by the household sector," Wang said. "The cut might take place this month or January next year."

Despite the lukewarm expansion in new loans, China's broad money supply, or M2, stood at 264.7 trillion yuan as of the end of November, up 12.4 percent from a year ago, according to the PBOC.

Data offered by market tracker Wind Info indicate that the growth rate was the highest in more than six years, which experts mainly attributed to a rebound in households' deposits as they redeemed wealth management products.