China's 8,000 micro-credit firms lend big

China had 7,839 micro-credit firms by the end of 2013, which made 227 billion yuan (37 billion U.S. dollars) in new loans last year, according to the central bank.

The total loan balance reached 819.1 billion yuan, statistics from the People's Bank of China showed.

Micro-financers are concentrated in Jiangsu, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Anhui and Hebei provinces, with eastern China's Jiangsu Province outnumbering others with 573 micro-credit firms.

Micro-credit is grassroots financing of small loans to farmers, enterprises and entrepreneurs.

The institutions are expected to play a bigger role in the real economy as China shifts away from an economy led by investment to one driven by consumption.