According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, on a monthly basis, money supply M2 continued to grow in October. As deposits grew at a faster pace than loans, the loan-to-deposit ratio dropped from a month earlier.

Money supply

Currency in circulation and demand deposits dropped 0.5% and 6.5% respectively. M1 thus decreased 5.6% when compared with the previous month. Meanwhile, as quasi-monetary liabilities rose 4.7%, M2 increased 3.2%, amounting to MOP244.6 billion. On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 7.9% and 15.9% respectively. The share of Pataca (MOP) in M2 stood at 27.5%, down 1.0 percentage point over a month ago or 0.6 percentage points from a year earlier. Concurrently, the share of Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) in M2 was 55.9%, up 1.2 percentage points month-to-month or 2.0 percentage points year-on-year.

Deposits

Resident deposits grew at a faster pace. Their value increased 3.3% from the previous month to MOP239.2 billion. Of which, MOP deposits dropped slightly by 0.5%, while HKD deposits and other foreign currency deposits increased at respective rates of 5.6% and 2.0%. Concurrently, non-resident deposits grew 4.4% to MOP76.1 billion and public sector deposits with the banking sector increased 6.2% to MOP21.5 billion. As a result, total deposits with the banking sector grew 3.7% from a month earlier to MOP336.8 billion. The shares of MOP and HKD in total deposits were 23.4% and 47.2% respectively.

Loans

Domestic loans to the private sector grew at a slower pace. Their value increased 2.1% on a monthly basis to MOP122.1 billion. Among which, MOP36.7 billion was MOP-denominated and MOP76.6 billion was denominated in HKD, representing 30.1% and 62.7% of the total respectively. Meanwhile, external loans increased 1.0% to MOP114.3 billion; of which, loans denominated in MOP and HKD accounted for 0.7% (MOP0.7 billion) and 41.4% (MOP47.3 billion) of the total respectively.

Loan-to-deposit ratios

As the growth pace of resident deposits (including public sector deposits) was faster than that of domestic loans to the private sector, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at end-October 2010 dropped 0.7 percentage points month-to-month to 46.8%. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors marked 70.2%, down 1.5 percentage points from the previous month.