Elephant News:

How was the total amount and structure of credit in the first half of this year? Thank you.

Zou Lan: 

I would like to invite Mr. Yan to answer this question.

Yan Xiandong:

Thank you for your question. Since the beginning of this year, the PBC has earnestly implemented the guiding principles of the Central Economic Work Conference and the deployments of the Government Work Report. We have implemented an appropriately accommodative monetary policy, strengthened counter-cyclical adjustments, comprehensively used various monetary policy tools, and served the high-quality development of the real economy. In terms of effect, credit in the first half of the year was characterized by growth in total volume and structural optimization.

The total amount of credit maintained steady growth. At the end of June, the outstanding balance of yuan-denominated loans held by financial institutions was 268.56 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.1% year on year. In the first half of the year, RMB loans increased by 12.92 trillion yuan, indicating that the financial system maintained a high level of credit support for the real economy. The main characteristics are as follows:

From the perspective of borrowing entities, loans to enterprises and public institutions are the main driver of credit growth. In the first half of the year, loans to enterprises and public institutions increased by 11.57 trillion yuan, accounting for 89.5% of all new loans, up 6.6 percentage points from the same period last year. Of this total, medium- and long-term loans increased by 7.17 trillion yuan, representing the primary component of enterprise and institutional loan growth. This indicates that the financial sector continues to provide stable funding sources for the real economy. Household loans increased by 1.17 trillion yuan, with business loans rising by 923.9 billion yuan, reflecting financial institutions' continued strengthening of support for individual and small business owners' production and business activities.

From the perspective of industry allocation, the sectoral structure of loans continues to improve. New loans are primarily directed toward key areas such as manufacturing and infrastructure. Specifically: At the end of June, the balance of medium- and long-term loans to manufacturing grew 8.7% year on year, increasing by 920.7 billion yuan in the first half of the year. The balance of medium- and long-term loans to infrastructure grew 7.4% year on year, rising by 2.18 trillion yuan in the year's first half.

In addition, loans in the five major areas of tech finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance and digital finance have demonstrated both increasing total volume and broader coverage. Strengthening efforts in these five major areas is a key focus for the financial sector to support the high-quality development of the real economy, as well as an important part of deepening supply-side structural reform in the financial sector. In recent years, the PBC has continued to advance the five major areas to better support major strategies, key sectors and weak links. As of the end of May, the balance of loans for the five major areas stood at 103.3 trillion yuan, up 14% year on year. Tech loans, which have drawn significant public attention, had a balance of 43.3 trillion yuan, rising 12% year on year. Among these, the balance of loans to tech-based enterprises reached 22.5 trillion yuan, while those to tech-related industries totaled 32.8 trillion yuan. You may notice that the tech loan balance is lower than the sum of its subcategories because we eliminate overlaps between subcategories when compiling data for the five major financial areas, providing an accurate reflection of our work results. As of the end of May, green, inclusive, pension and digital loans grew 27.4%, 11.2%, 38% and 9.5% year on year, respectively. All of these loan growth rates exceeded the overall loan growth rate for the same period. Financing accessibility has improved significantly. We serve a total of 78.39 million enterprises and individuals, an increase of 5.88 million from the same period last year. Among these, we serve 4.4 million enterprises, an increase of 250,000 from the same period last year.

That's all for my answer. Thank you.