China's new loans last month, nearly half of the figure reported in January, indicated the country's policies to balance loan growth have taken effect, economists said Tuesday.
New yuan-denominated loans stood at 700.1 billion yuan ($102.65 billion) in February, compared with 1.39 trillion yuan in January. and 1.07 trillion yuan a year earlier, the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said Thursday.
"The new loan was a reasonable figure and basically in line with the government's annual target of 7.5 trillion yuan," said Li Daokui, a financial professor with Tsinghua University.
Li, also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, the country's top political advisory body, said there would be further room for decrease in new loans in March and April.
The government's efforts to rein in excessive growth in new loans and the seasonal factor of the weeklong lunar new year holiday contributed to the lower data, said Liu Yuhui, an expert with the Institute of Finance and Banking under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The country targeted an annual 7.5 trillion yuan of new loans this year, Premier Wen Jiabao said last week in the government work report delivered to the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature.
The country's financial institutions extended a total of 9.6 trillion yuan in new loans last year.
The central bank has raised reserve requirement ratio that commercial banks have to set aside twice this year in order to sorb "comparatively loose liquidity".
