国内英语新闻:China's central bank calls for balanced lending

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A senior official with China's central bank Wednesday called on lenders to balance their lending this year and to avoid abrupt loan fluctuations.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) will continue to optimize the lending structure and properly manage the pace of credit growth while ensuring sufficient loans for economic recovery, said Zhang Tao, head of the bank's financial survey and statistics department.

The PBOC will continue its moderately loose monetary policy this year, he added.

Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday urged the government to optimize credit structure and maintain a proper pace of credit supply to guard against financial risks.

China's top banking regulator Liu Mingkang told the Asia Financial Forum held in Hong Kong Wednesday that China's overall credit growth will be scaled down to 7.5 trillion yuan (1.1 trillion U.S.dollars) in 2010, compared with last year's lending spree of 9.59 trillion yuan.

To help soak up extra cash flow, the central bank raised the reserve requirements on banks by 0.5 percentage points on Monday, the first increase in 18 months, which analysts forecast would help freeze 250 billion yuan of liquidity.