Loans may hit $146b in May: experts

New yuan loans extended by Chinese lenders in May might still reach around 900 billion yuan ($146 billion), said analysts.

As of May 12, the four biggest State-owned banks in China lent out 80 billion yuan for the month, signaling "a normal monthly pace", the Shanghai Securities News reported on Wednesday.

According to data released by the central bank last week, new yuan loans fell to 792.9 billion yuan in April from the 1.06 trillion yuan in previous month.

E Yongjian, a senior analyst at Bank of Communications, said the drop in April was mainly because of slower growth in credit demand, and restraints from fewer deposits.

Lending in May would remain stable, he said, while June might see some increase.

But a less-than-expected growth in deposits will add to uncertainties in May lending, the newspaper reported.

One major State-owned bank witnessed a 33.3 billion yuan decline in deposits in the first 13 days of May, while loans extended during the same period only stood at 9.3 billion yuan, it cited an anonymous source as saying.

Based on the usual lending pace new loans in May and June might reach nearly 2 trillion yuan, it reported.

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