New yuan-denominated lending in China reached 7.95 trillion yuan (US$1.2 trillion) last year, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, said Tuesday.

The figure was 1.65 trillion yuan less than the 2009 level of 9.6 trillion yuan, said the bank in a statement on its website. But it has overshot the government's full-year target of 7.5 trillion yuan.

New yuan-denominated loans in December last year stood at 480.7 billion yuan.

The country's foreign exchange reserves reached US$2.85 trillion by the end of last year, up 18.7 percent from a year earlier, said the statement.

China's broad money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, had increased 19.7 percent year on year to 72.58 trillion yuan at the end of last year.

The growth rate was 8 percentage points slower from a year ago, but still exceeded the government target of 17 percent.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), cash in circulation plus current corporate deposits, climbed 21.2 percent from a year earlier to 26.66 trillion yuan.

Chinese government had been working to tighten bank lending to cub liquidity and restrain assets bubbles by increasing one-year lending and deposit interest rate twice and bank reserve requirement ratio six times in 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2011)