China's social financing shrinks in 2011

China's social financing dropped by 1.11 trillion yuan (US$176 billion) year-on-year to 12.83 trillion yuan in 2011, the central bank said Wednesday.

The decrease was equal to a year-on-year decline of around 8 percent, according to figures released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

New yuan-denominated lending in 2011 reached 7.47 trillion yuan, down 390.1 billion yuan year-on-year, the PBOC said in a statement.

New loans in foreign currencies were worth 571.2 billion yuan, up 85.7 billion yuan from a year earlier, it said that China had targeted pumping 14 trillion yuan into social financing in 2011.

The PBOC hiked banks' reserve requirement ratio (RRR) six times and the benchmark interest rate three times in 2011 to fight inflation before cutting the RRR by 50 basis points in December.

The social financing scale gauges the overall pace of fund raising to help the central bank judge how much liquidity is in the financial system. The concept was first introduced by the central bank in December 2010.

It includes all the funds raised by entities in China's real economy during a certain period of time, such as loans of local and foreign currencies, entrusted loans, trust loans, bank acceptance bills, corporate bonds, equity financing, foreign direct investment and foreign debt.