BEIJING — The balance of local and foreign currency loans in the Yangtze River Delta region was 38.17 trillion yuan (around $5.55 trillion) at the end of 2019, up 13.5 percent year-on-year, official data showed.

The growth rate was 1.6 percentage points higher than the country's average and 0.1 percentage points higher than that in the previous year, according to the Shanghai Head Office of the People's Bank of China.

The balance of local and foreign currency loans accounted for 24.1 percent of the country's total, 0.4 percentage points higher than the previous year.

The balance of RMB loans in the delta region was 37.17 trillion yuan at the end of 2019, up 14 percent year-on-year and the growth rate was 0.1 percentage points higher than the previous year.

New RMB loans stood at 4.4 trillion yuan in the delta region last year, 428.4 billion yuan more than the previous year.

The balance of foreign currency loans in the delta region was $142.5 billion at the end of 2019, down 3.2 percent year-on-year.

New foreign currency loans shrank by $4.9 billion in the delta region in 2019, a decrease of $10.1 billion year-on-year.

The Yangtze River Delta includes Shanghai, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui in this calculation.