Loans flat in November

Money supply in Macau dropped in November, the Monetary Authority of Macao said yesterday, adding that the loan-to-deposit ratio of the banking sector rose from a month earlier, after loans stayed flat whereas total deposits declined. Currency in circulation grew 3.3 per cent whereas demand deposits dropped 7.7 per cent. Money supply (M1) decreased 5.9 per cent from one month earlier and quasi-monetary liabilities dropped 0.4 per cent. The sum of these two items (M2), decreased 1.1 per cent to MOP484.3 billion. On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 3.9 per cent and 8.7 per cent, respectively. Resident deposits decreased 1.2 per cent from October to MOP473.6 billion. Non-resident deposits dropped 2.5 per cent to MOP228.1 billion. Public sector deposits with the banking sector increased 2.0 per cent to MOP90.9 billion. As a result, total deposits with the banking sector dropped 1.2 per cent from a month earlier to MOP792.5 billion. Domestic loans to the private sector stayed flat in November, recording a marginal increase of 0.1 per cent from October to MOP331.6 billion. Of this, MOP93.0 billion was MOP-denominated and MOP212.3 billion was denominated in Hong Kong dollars, representing 28.0 per cent and 64.0 per cent of the total, respectively. The loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at end-November rose 0.4 percentage points from the previous month to 58.7 per cent. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors also grew by 1.1 percentage points to 85.8 per cent.