(Yicai) Dec. 14 -- New bank lending in China was higher in January to November than in the whole of last year after the country stepped up efforts from the start of the year to support the real economy through credit issuance.

Chinese banks extended CNY21.58 trillion (USD3 trillion) in new yuan loans in the first 11 months of 2023, up CNY1.55 trillion (USD216 billion) from a year earlier, according to data released by the People's Bank of China yesterday. New bank lending stood at CNY21.31 trillion last year.

Last month, new lending fell by CNY136.8 billion (USD19 billion) to CNY1.09 trillion from a year ago. Lending to households rose by CNY292.5 billion, while corporate borrowing jumped by CNY822.1 billion, and loans to non-bank financial institutions fell by CNY20.7 billion (USD2.9 billion).

November’s drop was mainly down to China striving to resolve debt risks in the real estate sector and local government, making it hard for credit data to remain basically stable, an expert told Yicai.

China's newly added social financing, a broad measure of credit liquidity in the world's second-largest economy, was CNY2.45 trillion in November, an increase of CNY455.6 billion, the PBOC data showed. The social financing stock rose 9.4 percent to CNY376.39 trillion (USD52.5 trillion), of which the balance of yuan loans jumped 10.7 percent to CNY234.37 trillion.

The central financial work conference held at the end of October proposed proposed revitalizing the financial resources that are inefficiently used and improving the efficiency of capital use, according to an insider.

That indicated that the PBOC will use more structural policy tools to guide financial institutions to increase support for scientific and technological innovation, green transformation, small and micro enterprises, and the digital economy, the person added.

China's twice-a-decade central financial work conference, previously known as the national financial work conference, assesses China's financial system and sets the direction for major reforms over the next five years. During this year's event, the central government emphasized the need to set up a long-term mechanism to prevent and resolve local debt and promote a virtuous cycle between finance and real estate.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev