Macao\'s lending to private sector grows 2.1 %

Macao's domestic loans to local private sector in March increased 2.1 percent month-on-month to 170.4 billion patacas (21.3 billion U.S. dollars), according to figures released by the Monetary Authority of Macao Thursday. Some 45.4 billion patacas of the domestic loans were pataca-denominated while 110.3 billion patacas were denominated in Hong Kong dollars, representing 26.7 percent and 64.7 percent of the total respectively, the figures indicated. Meanwhile, external loans rose by 8.4 percent month-on-month to 182.2 billion patacas, of which loans denominated in pataca and Hong Kong dollar accounted for 0.6 percent and 27.9 percent respectively. As the growth in domestic loans to the private sector, the loan- to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at the end of March increased by 0.9 percentage points month-on-month to 50.9 percent. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors stood at 76.8 percent in the period, up by 2 percentage point from the previous month.