China Money Growth Slumps

China’s growth in broad money supply slumped to its lowest on record in January even as new yuan loans hit a 5-1/2-year high, boosting bets that Beijing may further loosen monetary policy to avert a sharper economic slowdown, Arabnews reported. The broad M2 money supply measure in January rose just 10.8% from a year earlier, central bank data showed, the weakest pace since records started in 1998 and well under a 12.1% forecast. That was even as new yuan loans surged to 1.47 trillion yuan ($235.6b), trumping market expectations for 1.35t yuan, and more than doubling December’s 697.3b yuan.