BEIJING — Outstanding loans by Chinese financial institutions to small and micro businesses stood at 35.15 trillion yuan (about $5.1 trillion) at the end of May, data from China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) showed.

Some 19.28 million small and micro businesses had received loans of no more than 10 million yuan each by the end of last month, up 6.6 million from the start of last year.

With authorities encouraging loans to small and micro businesses to help shore up the economy, the growth rate of such loans has accelerated in recent years and lending rates kept falling.

During the first five months, lending rates for these businesses was 6.89 percent on average, down 0.92 percentage points from the first quarter of 2018.

China will continue to deepen financial supply-side structural reform and improve the policy environment to provide higher-quality and more effective financial services to small enterprises, according to a white paper released by the CBIRC earlier this week.