Central Bank： In the first quarter, the peak of credit supply of financial institutions, the growth rate of M2 was relatively high.

　　Cctv newsAt 15: 00 on April 20th, the People’s Bank of China held a press conference and answered questions on the financial statistics of the first quarter of 2023.

　　Ruan Jianhong, director of the Survey and Statistics Department of the People’s Bank of China, said that at the end of March, the balance of M2 was 281.46 trillion yuan, up 12.7% year-on-year, 0.2 percentage points lower than the end of last month and 3 percentage points higher than the same period of last year, and the growth rate of M2 remained at a high level. The balance of M1 was 67.81 trillion yuan, up 5.1% year-on-year, 0.7 percentage points lower than last month and 0.4 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.

　　The growth rate of M2 is relatively high, mainly due to the financial system’s efforts to strengthen financial support for the real economy and the corresponding increase in derived currencies. The first quarter is the peak of financial institutions’ credit supply. In the past two years, the new loans in the first quarter accounted for about 40% of the new loans in the whole year. In the first quarter of this year, there were more loans from financial institutions, with various loans increasing by 10.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.27 trillion yuan over the same period of last year. At the same time, the bond investment of financial institutions has also increased. In the first quarter, the bond investment of financial institutions increased by 2.42 trillion yuan, 498.6 billion yuan more than the same period of last year. Among them, government bond investment increased by 1.79 trillion yuan, accounting for 74% of the total bond investment increase, which is related to financial institutions’ support for government bond issuance.

　　The return of asset management funds to the balance sheet is also an important reason for the rise of M2. Since the second half of last year, the financial market has fluctuated, the risk appetite of the entity sector has declined, the funds of asset management products such as wealth management have been transferred back to the balance sheet, and the bank’s balance sheet has expanded, which has pushed up the growth rate of M2. At the end of March, the assets directly summarized by asset management products totaled 94.7 trillion yuan, down 1.6 trillion yuan from the beginning of the year, with a negative growth rate of 4.2% year-on-year, 8.1 percentage points lower than the same period of last year. If the on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet are combined, the general liquidity of the society can be seen comprehensively. At the end of March, the total liquidity increased by 10% year-on-year, 1.3 percentage points higher than the same period of last year and 2.7 percentage points lower than the growth rate of M2. Overall, the general liquidity growth is relatively stable.

　　The growth rate of M1 is relatively low. On the one hand, the macro-economy is still in the recovery stage. In the first quarter, the questionnaire survey of entrepreneurs of the People’s Bank of China showed that the macro-economic heat index of entrepreneurs was 33.8%, up 10.3 percentage points from the previous quarter, but down 1.9 percentage points compared with the same period last year. On the other hand, financial institutions have provided more abundant deposit products, some enterprises have strengthened the management of deposit funds, and their demand deposits have decreased accordingly.