Macao\'s lending to private sector up 4.5% in January

Macao's domestic loans to local private sector in January increased by 4.5 percent month-to-month to an equivalent of 269.0 billion patacas (33.65 billion U.S. dollars), according to figures released on Wednesday by the Monetary Authority of Macao. The figures also indicated that 29.6 percent of the domestic loans was pataca-denominated, while 61.8 percent was denominated in Hong Kong dollar. Meanwhile, external loans increased by 4.7 percent month-to- month to 290.5 billion patacas (36.34 billion U.S. dollars), of which loans denominated in pataca and HKD accounted for 1.6 percent and 23.3 percent, respectively. The loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at the end of January dropped 0.5 percentage points month-to-month to 50.4 percent. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors also decreased 1.2 percentage points to 77.4 percent