Big four banks issue 164b yuan of credit in Dec

China's big four banks issued 164 billion yuan ($26.3 billion) of new credit in December, Economic Information, a newspaper affiliated with the Xinhua News Agency, reported on Tuesday.

The big four State-owned banks are: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China.

Their loans accounted for 30 percent of China's total credit last month. Experts estimated that China's new loans in December should be between 550 billion and 600 billion yuan.

Data from the People's Bank of China showed that from January to November, China issued 7.75 trillion yuan in new loans. The full-year new loans are expected to hit 8.3 trillion yuan, in line with market expectations.