China's new yuan-denominated lending in August rose to 410.4 billion yuan (60.02 billion U.S. dollars) from July's 355.9 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said Friday.

The August figure brought new yuan-denominated loans in the first eight months to 8.15 trillion yuan, 5.04 trillion yuan more than the same period last year.

Ba Shusong, a researcher with the Finance Research Institute of Development Research Center of State Council, said monthly new loans, although a little higher than July, had maintained moderation from June's high level of 1.53 trillion yuan as a result of banks lending contraction and central bank's open market operations.

The broad measure of money supply, M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, added 28.53 percent from a year earlier to 57.67 trillion yuan at the end of August.

The narrow measure of money supply, M1 (cash in circulation plus current corporate deposits), was up 27.72 percent to 20.04 trillion yuan.

Zhuang Jian, a senior economist with the Asian Development Bank, told Xinhua the figures showed money supply was sufficient to meet the demands of economic growth but there were still risks of asset bubbles because of too much fluidity."

He predicted money supply growth would slow down if monthly loans maintained the levels of July and August.

Renminbi deposits rose 327.4 billion yuan in August as they increased for the first eight months by 10.72 trillion yuan, 4.63 trillion yuan more than the same period last year.

Deposits of businesses in August rose 134.3 billion yuan, while residents' deposits dropped 80 billion yuan.

Zhuang said the rise of enterprises' deposits reflected improvement in businesses' operations, and the decrease of residents' deposits was the result of greater investment in other fields such as the stock market.

Experts said a moderate growth in loans would dampen inflation expectations by cutting fluidity, which would be good for the stable and healthy operation of banks.

Zhu Min, vice president of the Bank of China, said recently with a large amount of loans flowing to infrastructure construction in the first half, bank loans would maintain a steady level in the second half of the year without major fluctuations.

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2009)