SHANGHAI: China’s bank lending slumped in July from June, the central bank said yesterday, as demand for loans weakened amid struggles in the property sector, key to the world’s second-largest economy.
New yuan loans extended by domestic banks came in at 385.2bn yuan ($62.5bn) last month, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement, a drastic decline from June’s 1.08 trillion yuan. The figure was just over half the median forecast of 730 billion yuan in a poll of 15 economists by the Wall Street Journal.
It was also down 45 percent year-on-year from the 699.9 billion yuan of new lending in July 2013. Property prices in China have been falling for three consecutive months and an unnamed PBoC official said in a statement: “Effective loan demand was not as strong as in the past, due to downward pressure in the domestic economy and that the property market is undergoing some adjustments.”
AFP
