China's new yuan loans drop in April

China's new yuan-denominated loans totaled 1.47 trillion yuan (about 228.77 billion U.S. dollars) in April, down 229.3 billion yuan year on year, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.1 percent year on year to 226.21 trillion yuan at the end of April, according to the People's Bank of China.

The M2 growth rate was 1.3 percentage points lower than that at the end of March, and down 3 percentage points from the same period last year.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, came in at 60.54 trillion yuan at the end of April, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier.

M0, the amount of cash in circulation, rose by 5.3 percent year on year to 8.58 trillion yuan by the end of last month.

The central bank withdrew 74 billion yuan of net cash from the market in April, the central bank data showed.

China's newly added social financing, a measurement of funds the real economy receives from the financial system, came in at 1.85 trillion yuan in April, down 1.25 trillion yuan year on year, central bank data showed Wednesday.

In breakdown, yuan-denominated loans to the real economy increased by 1.28 trillion yuan, down by 339.9 billion yuan from a year ago, according to the People's Bank of China.

By the end of April, total social financing reached 296.16 trillion yuan, up by 11.7 percent year on year.

Wednesday's data also showed that by the end of April, the outstanding yuan deposits increased by 8.9 percent, year on year, to 220.2 trillion yuan.

China's central bank has pledged to make its prudent monetary policy more targeted and flexible to adapt better to the needs of high-quality development and put more focus on the efficiency of financial services to support the real economy.