BSP: M3 growth steady in June
Credit to Author: MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO, TMT| Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2019 16:17:58 +0000
GROWTH in the country’s money supply was steady in June amid the continued slowdown in bank lending, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Wednesday.
Domestic liquidity or M3 rose by 6.4 percent year-on-year to P11.776 trillion, unchanged from May’s expansion rate. Month-on-month and seasonally adjusted, M3 rose by 0.1 percent.
“Demand for credit eased slightly, but remained the principal driver of money-supply growth,” the central bank said in a statement.
Expansion in domestic claims slowed to 6.2 percent from May’s 6.8 percent, “due mainly to the sustained growth in credit to the private sector,“ it added.
Meanwhile, net claims on the central government contracted by 3.9 percent, an improvement from the previous month’s 6.4-percent drop.
Net foreign assets in peso terms increased by 5.3 percent, faster than the 4.4-percent acceleration in May.
“The BSP will continue to closely monitor domestic liquidity dynamics to ensure that overall monetary conditions remain in line with the BSP’s price and financial stability objectives,” the Bangko Sentral said.
Bank-lending growth, meanwhile, slowed further to 10.5 percent in June from 11.9 percent a month earlier.
Including reverse repurchase placements (RRPs) with the BSP, lending growth also decelerated to 10.5 percent from May’s 10.6 percent.
On a month-on-month and seasonally-adjusted basis, commercial bank loans net of RRPs rose by 0.2 percent, while those inclusive of RRPs also increased by 0.3 percent.
Lending for production activities, which accounted for 88 percent of the aggregate loan portfolio, expanded at a slower 9.8 percent from 11.5 percent in May.
Although moderated, the growth in production loans was driven primarily by increased lending to these sectors: real-estate activities (13.5 percent); financial and insurance activities (22.0 percent); electricity, gas, steam and air-conditioning supply (13.5 percent), construction (42.5 percent); wholesale and retail trade, and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (6.5 percent); and manufacturing (4.1 percent).
Bank lending to other sectors also increased during the month, except those in other community, social and personal activities (-51.9 percent); and professional, scientific and technical activities (-30.5 percent).
Growth in household consumption loans accelerated by 15.3 percent from 14.6 percent in the previous month, the BSP said, “due to faster growth in credit card, motor vehicle, and salary-based general purpose consumption loans during the month.”