China bank loans hit record high in March

The New Age

Chinese banks lent a record amount of money in March as they responded to government calls to support the economy in the face of the global financial crisis, the central bank announced Saturday.
New loans climbed to a monthly record of 1.890 trillion yuan ($277b) in March, from 1.070 trillion in February and 1.620 trillion in January, according to bank figures.
Chinese banks lent a total of 4.580 trillion yuan in the first quarter, close to the target of five trillion set by Beijing as the minimum banks must lend for the whole year.
An unnamed official from a financial institution, quoted Wednesday by the Shanghai Securities News, said the surge in loans had forced the China Banking Regulatory Commission to pay more attention to risk control.
The authorities do not wish to be confronted again with sizeable amounts of bad debts.
Beijing has undertaken a restructuring of its banking sector in recent years, cleaning up assessments and partially privatising the banks to enable them to face the competition from foreign institutions, which entered after the market opened at the end of 2006.