According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, on a monthly basis, money supply M2 decreased slightly in August. As total loans rose at a faster pace than total deposits with banks, the loan-to-deposit ratio grew slightly from a month ago.

Money supply

Currency in circulation noted a decline of 0.1% whereas demand deposits increased 3.6%. M1 thus rose 2.9% compared with the previous month. Meanwhile, quasi-monetary liabilities went down by 0.8%. The sum of these two items, i.e. M2, dropped 0.3% to MOP207.8 billion. On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 22.6% and 9.3% respectively. The share of Pataca (MOP) in M2 stood at 28.3%, up 0.6 percentage points over a month ago and a year earlier. Concurrently, the share of Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) in M2 was 53.5%, down 1.0 percentage point month-to-month or up 1.7 percentage points year-on-year.

Deposits

Resident deposits fell slightly by 0.3% from the previous month to MOP203.1 billion. Of which, HKD deposits dropped by 2.1% while MOP deposits and other foreign currency deposits grew at respective rates of 1.8% and 2.0%. Concurrently, non-resident deposits rose 2.2% (to MOP74.0 billion) while public sector deposits with the banking sector slid 0.4% (to MOP13.3 billion). As a result, total deposits with the banking sector edged up 0.3% from the previous month to MOP290.4 billion. The shares of MOP and HKD in total deposits were 22.3% and 45.4% respectively.

Loans

Domestic loans to the private sector grew 2.0% month-to-month to MOP95.3 billion. Among which, MOP21.1 billion was MOP-denominated and MOP67.8 billion was denominated in HKD, representing 22.2% and 71.2% of the total respectively. Meanwhile, external loans rose by 2.7% to MOP66.1 billion; of which, loans denominated in MOP and HKD accounted for 1.6% and 53.9% respectively of the total, at values of MOP1.0 billion and MOP35.6 billion.

Loan-to-deposit ratios

Due to the decline in resident deposits and increase in domestic loans to the private sector, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at end-August 2009 increased by 1.0 percentage point month-to-month to 44.0%. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors stood at 55.6%, up 1.1 percentage points.