CHINESE banks accelerated lending to property developers last year, with loans rising 23 percent from 2013, data showed Friday, evidence that authorities are telling banks to pump more cash into the housing market to support the economy.

    Developers took 5.63 trillion yuan (US$904 billion) worth of loans last year, up 22.6 percent on an annual basis and faster than a 15 percent growth in 2013, central bank data showed.

    But buoyant lending to developers contrasted with more subdued lending to homebuyers. Mortgages rose 17 percent in 2014 from a year ago, slowing from growth of 23 percent in 2013.

    Still, the solid expansion in overall real estate loans indicates that the Chinese Government has thrown its weight behind the housing market to offer policy support, and lift a sector that accounts for about 15 percent of China’s economy.

    Once notorious for its stubborn exuberance, China’s housing market weakened to become one of the biggest drags on the world’s second-largest economy last year, hurt in part by a large supply of unsold homes in smaller cities.

    Yet even with the housing slump, mortgages are seen by banks to be among the safest loans in China because down payment levels vary between 30 percent and 60 percent.

    Bank lending in China is an indication of official policy as Chinese banks, being State-owned, have to heed government orders on whom to lend to and when to lend.

    (SD-Agencies)