Banking, insurance lend support to real economy

China's banking and insurance sectors ramped up support to the real economy, promoting the expansion of domestic demand, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission Huang Hong said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The country's new yuan loans amounted to 7.1 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) in the first quarter, up by 1.3 trillion yuan year-on-year. The new loans were mainly directed to the manufacturing, retail and wholesale and infrastructure construction sectors, in amounts of 1.1 trillion, 0.9 trillion and 1.5 trillion yuan, respectively.

The funds are expected to effectively support the development of the high-tech manufacturing sector, the upgrading of conventional industries, household and public consumption and infrastructure investment, Huang said.

In the first quarter, the new bond investment of banks and insurers was 2 trillion yuan, and new equity investment by insurance funds was 126.3 billion yuan.

Financial institutions also increased credit support to small businesses. At the end of the first quarter, the balance of loans to micro and small-sized enterprises, with a total credit line of up to 10 million yuan for each borrower, increased by 25.93 percent year-on-year. The lending rate of new loans issued by the five largest State-owned commercial banks to such businesses dropped by 0.3 percentage points from last year to 4.3 percent.

Moreover, credit loans to companies, merchants and individual business owners increased by 2.5 trillion yuan year-on-year in the first quarter. The growth of credit loans nearly doubled the increase during the same period last year, according to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.