According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, on a monthly basis, money

supply M2 witnessed a slight increase in April. As loans grew at a faster pace than deposits, the loan-to-

deposit ratio continued to rise.

Money supply

Currency in circulation decreased 1.2% whereas demand deposits increased 1.5%. M1 thus rose 1.1% compared with the previous month. Meanwhile, quasi-monetary liabilities increased slightly by 0.3%. The sum of these two items, i.e. M2, grew 0.4% to MOP216.9 billion. On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 26.2% and 9.9% respectively. The share of Pataca (MOP) in M2 stood at 27.8%, down 0.3 percentage points over a month ago or 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier. Concurrently, the share of Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) in M2 was 54.6%, unchanged from the previous month but up 1.1 percentage points year-on-year.

Deposits

Resident deposits rose 0.5% from the previous month to MOP211.8 billion. Of which, MOP deposits declined 0.8% while HKD deposits and other foreign currency deposits grew at respective rates of 0.5% and 2.2%. Concurrently, non-resident deposits increased by 0.5% to MOP73.3 billion while public sector deposits with the banking sector dropped 2.0% to MOP15.7 billion. As a result, total deposits with the banking sector rose 0.3% from the previous month to MOP300.8 billion. The shares of MOP and HKD in total deposits were 22.3% and 46.4% respectively.

Loans

Domestic loans to the private sector expanded 1.1% in April to MOP106.2 billion. Among which, MOP31.6 billion was MOP-denominated and MOP67.9 billion was denominated in HKD, representing 29.7% and 63.9% of the total respectively. Meanwhile, external loans grew 1.7% to MOP108.0 billion; of which, loans denominated in MOP and HKD accounted for 0.8% (MOP0.9 billion) and 40.2% (MOP43.4 billion) of the total respectively.

Loan-to-deposit ratios

As domestic loans to the private sector rose at a faster pace than resident deposits, the loan-to-deposit ratio

for the resident sector at end-April 2010 rose 0.4 percentage points month-to-month to 46.7%. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors stood at 71.2%, up 0.7 percentage points.