China's new yuan loans rise in 2022

BEIJING -- China's new yuan-denominated loans totaled 21.31 trillion yuan ($3.15 trillion) in 2022, up 1.36 trillion yuan year-on-year, central bank data showed Tuesday.

In December alone, new yuan loans stood at 1.4 trillion yuan, up 266.5 billion yuan year on year, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 11.8 percent year-on-year to 266.43 trillion yuan at the end of last month, according to the PBOC.

The M2 growth was 0.6 percentage points lower than that at the end of November but was 2.8 percentage points higher than the same period the year before.

The narrow measure of the money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 3.7 percent year-on-year to 67.17 trillion yuan by the end of last December.

The M1 growth decelerated by 0.9 percentage points from that at the end of November but was 0.2 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2021.

The outstanding M0, the amount of cash in circulation, expanded 15.3 percent year-on-year to 10.47 trillion yuan at the end of last December.

The central bank pumped 1.39 trillion yuan of net cash into the market throughout 2022, PBOC data shows.

Newly added social financing, a measurement of funds that individuals and non-financial firms receive from the financial system, totaled 32.01 trillion yuan last year, up 668.9 billion yuan from the same period in 2021.

The real economy received 20.91 trillion yuan of new yuan loans, up 974.6 billion yuan year-on-year.

Tuesday's data also showed that China's new yuan deposits in 2022 totaled 26.26 trillion yuan, up 6.59 trillion yuan, year-on-year. By the end of December, total outstanding yuan deposits stood at 258.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.3 percent year-on-year.

For the whole of 2022, RMB settlements for cross-border trade amounted to 10.51 trillion yuan, and RMB settlements for direct investment reached 6.76 trillion yuan.

The PBOC has vowed to strengthen its implementation of the prudent monetary policy and provide more support for the real economy in a statement released after the latest quarterly meeting of its monetary policy committee.

The central bank said it would work to maintain liquidity at a reasonably ample level, maintain effective growth in total credit volume, and ensure that increases in money supply and aggregate financing are generally in step with nominal economic growth.