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Beijing - Chinese banks made ¥852.7bn ($137.8bn) of new loans in November, up 56% from the previous month and easily beating market expectations, as the government ramped up efforts to avert a sharper economic slowdown.
Total social financing (TSF), a broader measure of overall liquidity in the economy, jumped 74% from October to ¥1.15trn, the People's Bank of China said on Friday.
Analysts had expected banks to make ¥650bn of loans last month, up from ¥548.3bn in October, but sources alleged that Beijing had ordered lenders to extend more credit in the final months of 2014 to spur activity.
"The lending numbers give hope that investment will pick up, now that there are more funds available to pay for capital spending projects," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong.
"The data should be taken positively overall, although it does not outweigh the negative interpretation of earlier industrial output results."
China's central bank cut interest rates for the first time in over two years on 21 November in a bid to shore up the economy and ease the burden on debt-laden companies.
Still, some analysts doubted whether the strong credit growth could be sustained in coming months as most banks remain reluctant to lend at a time when companies are struggling to pay off debt and bad loans are already sharply rising.
