China Property Sector Loans Stabilize Toward Year-End: PBOC

(Bloomberg) -- China's property loan growth stabilized in the fourth quarter of 2021, even before authorities called on banks to increase lending to the struggling sector to ease a liquidity crisis.

The country's outstanding loans in the property sector increased to 52.17 trillion yuan ($8.2 trillion) at the end of 2021, according to the People's Bank of China. The year-over-year growth was 7.9%, faster than the 7.6% pace seen at the end of September, which was the slowest rate since the PBOC started analyzing the data in 2010.

Outstanding individual mortgages were 38.32 trillion yuan at the end of 2021, up 11.3% year-on-year, with the pace unchanged from September. Outstanding property development loans, however, declined for the third consecutive quarter to 12.01 trillion yuan.

The PBOC has vowed to make overall credit expansion more stable this year, after guiding for slower credit growth for most of 2021. A property market downturn and sporadic virus outbreaks have weighed on the economy and cast a shadow on corporate and household demand for borrowing. 

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With assistance from Bloomberg