The effect of the credit easing policy showed that the total amount of social finance increased nearly three times month on month. In March 2022, social finance increased by 4.65 trillion, 3.9 times that of 1.19 trillion last month, an increase of 1.3 trillion compared with the same period last year. Driven by the incremental expansion of social finance, the stock of social finance increased by 10.6% year-on-year in March, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous month. Among them, RMB loans increased by 3.13 trillion, an increase of 1.27 trillion year-on-year; The net financing of government bonds was 705.2 billion yuan, an increase of 392.1 billion yuan year-on-year; Off balance sheet financing increased by 13.3 billion yuan, an increase of 426.2 billion yuan year-on-year. From a quarterly perspective, the cumulative increment of social financing scale in the first quarter was 12.06 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.77 trillion yuan over the same period of the previous year. The increment mainly came from the increase of RMB loans and the increase of net financing of government bonds. The above two items increased by 425.8 billion yuan and 923.8 billion yuan respectively year-on-year. Generally speaking, due to the seasonality of credit supply and financial expenditure nodes, the seasonal characteristics of social finance statistics are prominent. Generally, the increment is large in the first and last months of the first quarter and the end months of the second, third and fourth quarters of each year. However, the increase in the scale of social finance in the first quarter of this year has exceeded the seasonality and is higher than that in the first quarter of 2020. Among them, the expansion of government bond financing plays an important role. If the net financing of government bonds is excluded, the growth rate of social finance stock will drop from the current 10.6% to 10.3% at the end of March. The large-scale increase of government bonds and RMB loans reflects that the effect of the wide credit policy has been shown. With the advance of the issuance of local government special bonds, the government bond financing has always maintained a large increase in the first three months of this year, and the supporting role of follow-up infrastructure for investment may continue to appear.
The impact of repeated outbreaks and expected weakening remains, and the overall loan structure of enterprises is weak. In March, enterprise credit increased by 2.48 trillion yuan, an increase of 880 billion yuan year-on-year, including enterprise short-term loans of 808.9 billion yuan, an increase of 434.1 billion yuan year-on-year, bill financing of 318.7 billion yuan, an increase of 471.2 billion yuan year-on-year. Short term loans and bill financing are still the main reasons for enterprise credit expansion. Medium and long-term loans to enterprises increased by 1.34 trillion, an increase of only 14.8 billion year-on-year. In March, the short-term loan of household sector was 384.8 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 139.4 billion; Medium and long-term loans amounted to 373.5 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 250.4 billion. From the quarterly data, corporate credit increased by 7.08 trillion in the first quarter, an increase of about 1.7 trillion year-on-year, but the medium and long-term loans of new enterprises decreased by 520 billion yuan year-on-year. The proportion of medium and long-term loans of new enterprises in New RMB loans also decreased to 47.4% from 58.3% in the first quarter of last year. In the first quarter, the new credit of residents increased by 1.3 trillion less than that of the same period last year. The above data show that enterprises' expectations for medium and long-term economic growth are still not optimistic enough, and the financing demand of enterprises is greatly affected by the constant pressure of rigid expenditure under the repeated epidemic; Residents' consumption will is still weak, and the expectation and demand for the real estate market are still weak. Therefore, from the perspective of loan structure, the credit expansion effect brought by policy factors is emerging, but the credit expansion range brought by market factors is weak, and the repair of endogenous economic momentum is greatly affected by the repeated epidemic.
Preventive Savings increased, M2 rebounded, and the margin of the scissors difference between M2 and M1 widened. In March, M2 increased by 9.7% year-on-year, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous month and 0.3 percentage points from the same period last year. M1 increased by 4.7% year-on-year, unchanged from the previous month and decreased by 2.4 percentage points year-on-year. In March, residents' deposits increased by 2.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.8 trillion over the same period last year, which may indicate that the spread of the epidemic in many places in March has enhanced residents' motivation for preventive savings. The newly added deposits in the enterprise sector were 2.6 trillion yuan, a decrease of 0.8 trillion yuan compared with the same period last year, which may indicate that household consumption expenditure is weak, resulting in a reduction in the scale of deposits transferred from households to enterprises. The newly added fiscal deposits were - 842.5 billion yuan, indicating that the intensity of fiscal expenditure is accelerating and the measures to broaden and stabilize credit are being implemented. In March, the margin of m2-m1 scissors spread continued to widen, which may indicate that the market activity is still low.
The growth rate of social finance may increase steadily, but attention should be paid to further giving play to the structural adjustment function of monetary policy. The social finance data in March showed the characteristics of strong aggregate and weak structure. Under the background of fiscal advance and accelerated issuance of special bonds this year, there is no doubt about the support willingness and strength of policy factors for steady growth, nor does it rule out the possibility of continuing to reduce reserve requirements and interest rates in the future. However, it is expected that the weakening will continue or lead to the deterioration of social finance structure, resulting in the imbalance of economic growth structure. In the follow-up, on the one hand, the broad credit policy will continue to expand domestic demand, especially the underpinning effect of infrastructure investment on the economy will continue to appear. On the other hand, the real estate policy may continue to relax, especially allowing local governments to appropriately adjust local financing and land supply policies according to urban policies. In addition, the structural adjustment function of monetary policy may become more prominent, especially by increasing targeted regulation and control, and the monetary policy tools directly reaching real enterprises may be used more frequently to continue to increase credit support for small and medium-sized enterprises. On the whole, with the policy effect of broadening credit and stabilizing infrastructure and the increase of financial support for micro entities, the growth rate of social finance may rise steadily.
