BEIJING — China's central bank will continue to channel credit funds into the real economy, especially small businesses, through measures such as targeted reserve requirement ratio (RRR) cuts and refinancing.

With a variety of policy tools, the central bank has enhanced financial countercyclical regulation and control to provide more credit support for the real economy, the People's Bank of China said on April 16.

In the first quarter, the new yuan-denominated loans hit 7.1 trillion yuan (about $1 trillion), the highest quarterly level in history, the central bank said.

Along with the growing credit supply, the credit structure has been optimized and the credit support is becoming more targeted and effective, the central bank said.

Anti-epidemic and epidemic-affected sectors have received strong loan support, and the manufacturing, infrastructure and service sectors have received more medium- and long-term loans.

The scale and coverage of small and micro loans have rapidly resumed their upward growth trend, which will benefit small businesses.

The balance of loans for small and micro firms stood at 12.4 trillion yuan at the end of March, up 23.6 percent year-on-year.

The growth rate not only reversed the decline in January and February, but also rose 4.5 percentage points over the same period last year.

The balance of loans for small and micro firms accounted for 7.7 percent of the total balance of loans at the end of March, 0.6 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

The scale and coverage of small and micro loans will continue to grow rapidly, the central bank said.