BEIJING — China's new yuan-denominated loans totaled 3.13 trillion yuan (about $491.8 billion) in March, central bank data showed on April 11.

The data, higher than the market forecast of 2.8 trillion yuan, marked an increase of 395.1 billion yuan over the same period last year.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 9.7 percent year-on-year to 249.77 trillion yuan at the end of last month, according to the People's Bank of China.

The M2 growth rate was 0.3 percentage points higher from the same period last year.

The outstanding amount of M1, narrow measure of money supply which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, stood at 64.51 trillion yuan at the end of March, up 4.7 percent year-on-year.

The outstanding amount of M0, the amount of cash in circulation, went up 9.9 percent from a year ago to 9.51 trillion yuan at the end of last month.

In the first quarter, the central bank injected a total of 431.7 billion yuan of net cash into the market.

The central bank data also showed that newly added social financing, a measure of funds that individuals and non-financial firms receive from the financial system, came in at 4.65 trillion yuan in March, up 1.28 trillion yuan from the same period last year.

Total new social financing in the first quarter amounted to 12.06 trillion yuan, up 1.77 trillion yuan from the same period a year ago.

A data breakdown indicates consistent support for the real economy from the financial sector. Loans to the real economy accounted for 69.1 percent of the total social financing in the first quarter, edging down 7.8 percentage points from the 2021 level.

Data also showed that China's new yuan deposits hit 10.86 trillion yuan in the first three months, up 2.51 trillion yuan from the same period a year earlier. By the end of March, outstanding yuan deposits had climbed 10 percent year-on-year to 243.1 trillion yuan.

In the first quarter, RMB settlements for cross-border trade totaled 2.07 trillion yuan.

At a State Council executive meeting last week, the country pledged to forcefully implement its prudent monetary policy to maintain reasonably sufficient liquidity, explore and adopt financial measures to bolster consumption and effective investment, and support financing in key fields and for weak links.