According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, on a monthly basis, money supply M2 resumed its growth in March. As loans grew at a faster pace than deposits, the loan-to-deposit ratio continued to rise.

Money supply

Currency in circulation and demand deposits dropped 2.5% and 6.4% respectively. M1 thus decreased 5.8% when compared with the previous month. Nevertheless, quasi-monetary liabilities rose by 3.7%. M2 therefore increased by 2.4% to MOP257.0 billion. On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 7.6% and 19.0% respectively. The share of Pataca (MOP) in M2 stood at 27.3%, down 0.8 percentage points over a month ago and 0.9 percentage points from a year earlier. The share of Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) in M2 was 53.6%, up 0.9 percentage points month-to-month but down 1.0 percentage point year-on-year.

Deposits

Resident deposits grew 2.5% from the previous month to MOP250.7 billion. Of which, MOP deposits dropped 0.5%, while HKD deposits and other foreign currency deposits increased at respective rates of 4.1% and 2.1%. Concurrently, non-resident deposits grew 1.8% to MOP86.4 billion and public sector deposits with the banking sector increased 2.8% to MOP23.6 billion. As a result, total deposits with the banking sector grew 2.3% from a month earlier to MOP360.7 billion. The shares of MOP and HKD in total deposits were 22.9% and 44.9% respectively.

Loans

Domestic loans to the private sector increased 1.8% on a monthly basis to MOP139.8 billion. Among which, MOP38.4 billion was MOP-denominated and MOP89.7 billion was denominated in HKD, representing 27.5% and 64.1% of the total respectively. Loans to “wholesale and retail trade”, “manufacturing industries” and “personal housing loans” increased quarter-to-quarter at respective rates of 36.5%, 9.4% and 8.2% whereas those to “gaming” dropped 6.3%.

Meanwhile, external loans increased 9.2% to MOP148.0 billion; of which, loans denominated in MOP and HKD accounted for 0.3% (MOP0.4 billion) and 35.9% (MOP53.2 billion) respectively.

Loan-to-deposit ratios

As resident deposits grew faster than domestic loans to the private sector, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at end-March 2011 dropped 0.4 percentage points month-to-month to 51.0%. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors was 79.8%, up 2.4 percentage points from the previous month.