According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, money supply continued to drop in March. As total loans increased at a faster pace than total deposits, the overall loan-to-deposit ratio of the banking sector rose from a month earlier.
Money supply
Currency in circulation dropped 2.3% whereas demand deposits kept virtually unchanged. M1 thus decreased 0.4% from one month earlier. Concurrently, quasi-monetary liabilities dropped 0.4%. The sum of these two items, i.e. M2, decreased 0.4% to MOP455.3 billion. On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 12.0% and 16.4% respectively. The share of Pataca (MOP) in M2 stood at 24.6%, up 0.1 percentage point from a month ago but down 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier. The share of Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) in M2 was 49.7%, down 0.7 percentage points month-to-month or 4.7 percentage points year-on-year.
Deposits
Resident deposits decreased 0.3% from the preceding month to MOP445.8 billion. Of which, MOP deposits and other foreign currency deposits grew at respective rates of 0.2% and 1.9% whereas HKD deposits decreased 1.7%. Non-resident deposits rose 1.0% to MOP196.7 billion. Public sector deposits with the banking sector also increased 0.9% to MOP85.4 billion. As a result, total deposits with the banking sector grew 0.2% from a month earlier to MOP727.9 billion. The shares of MOP and HKD in total deposits were 18.8% and 40.6% respectively.
Loans
Domestic loans to the private sector increased 3.4% from a month ago to MOP283.9 billion. Among which, MOP81.6 billion was MOP-denominated and MOP177.3 billion was denominated in HKD, representing 28.7% and 62.4% of the total respectively. Analysed by economic sector, "wholesale and retail trade", "manufacturing industries" and "construction and public works" increased at respective rates of 25.5%, 15.7% and 14.1% compared with a quarter ago, whereas "non-monetary financial institutions" and "agriculture and fisheries" dropped 42.2% and 23.5% respectively. External loans increased 2.0% to MOP296.0 billion; of which, loans denominated in MOP and HKD accounted for 1.9% (MOP5.5 billion) and 23.1% (MOP68.4 billion) respectively.
Loan-to-deposit ratios
The loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at end-March rose 1.8 percentage points from the previous month to 53.4%. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors also grew by 1.9 percentage points to 79.7%.
