New lending by banks on the mainland grew faster than expected last month, indicating policy fine-tuning by Beijing is under way to counter an economic slowdown.
Mainland banks extended 562.2 billion yuan (HK$689.99 billion) in new local currency loans in November, the People's Bank of China said yesterday.
Although the figure was lower than the 587 billion yuan of new loans in October, it was higher than the 550 billion yuan in lending forecast by economists for November.
'Note that usually November and December is a slow season for new loans, so this reading is actually quite strong,' said Lu Ting, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. 'Beijing has started fine-tuning its policies since early October, and credit supply has been truly improved.'
Policymakers put 'maintaining growth' ahead of 'taming inflation' when listing the government's goals for 2012 in a statement after the Central Economic Work Conference concluded yesterday, a difference in emphasis that is generating expectations that policies would be more pro-growth next year.
Barclays Capital forecasts new loans at 7.5 trillion to 8 trillion yuan in 2012, compared with an estimated 7.5 trillion yuan this year, while it put M2 growth at 14 per cent next year.