HONG KONG — Chinese lending unexpectedly and dramatically slowed in July to the lowest level since the depths of the global financial crisis, with a weak property market appearing to drive down demand for new loans despite recent moves to ease credit.
Total social financing, a broad measure of new credit, was 273.1 billion renminbi, or $44.3 billion, in July, the central bank reported on its website Wednesday. That is the lowest monthly total since October 2008, the month before China announced a massive stimulus program seen as key to China's success in avoiding the deep recessions experienced in the United States and Europe.
In a separate statement, the People's Bank of China said the slowdown in new credit in July could be explained by factors including better supervision over the nonbank financial system, the strong lending in June and "adjustments" in the property sector. The bank said that the lending levels were still in a "reasonable range" and that there was no change in monetary policy.
Economists had forecast far higher levels of financing. Standard Chartered Bank estimated new credit would be more than five times higher than the actual figure. A narrower measure, new local-currency loans, came in at 385.2 billion renminbi in July, about half of the projected amount and the lowest monthly total since December 2009, when the People's Bank of China was reining in the huge surge in credit that was part of the stimulus.
Stephen Green, Standard Chartered's Hong Kong-based head of research for China, wrote in a note that "weak demand for credit from the private sector and households is the likely overall answer" to the unexpected slowdown, but also noted that June's total financing level, at almost 2 trillion renminbi, was high. The low number in July may be partly explained by an effort to bolster lending figures at the end of the second quarter, Mr. Green wrote.
The weak lending figures came after the country's economy gained some momentum in the second quarter, growing at 7.5 percent from the year-earlier period, a slight increase from the 7.4 percent growth in the first quarter. In June, the central bank lowered the amount of funds some regional banks had to keep as reserves, freeing them to lend more money. Still, those figures are far less than the double-digit gains routinely posted during the last three decades, and the lending figures released Wednesday point to further weakness.
The figures may reflect continued softness in the country's massive residential property market, which drives demand for everything from cement to household appliances. Last year economists at the British bank HSBC estimated the total value of housing stock in China to be about 3.3 times annual gross domestic product, or more than $30 trillion. New home prices declined in May and June, and home sales and residential construction fell in the first half of the year. Developers, who for years strove to avoid lowering prices, are increasingly doing so to clear unsold inventory caused by a property investment boom that resulted in empty apartment blocks in cities across China.
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