Micro-credit companies issue 161.2 bln yuan in loans

New yuan-denominated loans issued by China's micro-credit companies amounted to 161.2 billion yuan (26.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three quarters, data from the central bank showed Tuesday.

By the end of September, the number of micro-credit companies in China had risen to 7,398, with total outstanding loans at 753.5 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website.

In recent years, micro-lending companies have become an important channel for medium- and small-sized firms as well as individual businesses to access funds.

The central bank report showed east China's Jiangsu Province had 555 small-credit companies by September, the most of any provincial-level region, followed by northeast China's Liaoning Province and north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.