Macau\'s lending to private sector up 3.3% in August

Macao\'s domestic loans to local private sector in August increased by 3.3 percent from the previous month to an equivalent of 240.8 billion patacas (30.15 billion U.S. dollars), according to the figures released on Friday by Monetary Authority of Macao. The figures also indicated that 31.4 percent of the domestic loans was pataca-denominated, while 58.4 percent was denominated in Hong Kong dollar. Meanwhile, external loans increased by 0.2 percent month-to- month to 267 billion patacas (33.43 billion U.S. dollars), of which loans denominated in pataca and HKD accounted for 1.1 percent and 22.6 percent respectively. The loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at end of August rose 0.4 percentage points month-to-month to 51 percent. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors dropped 0.9 percentage points to 80.1 percent.