China's total new yuan loans for the year will exceed four trillion yuan, the Shanghai Securities News cited a senior central bank official as saying.

New yuan lending in the January-September period totalled 3.48 trillion yuan, up 3.6 per cent from 3.36 trillion yuan during the same period last year, according to official figures.

The forecast published by the newspaper, a mouthpiece for China's securities regulator, indicated that despite the central bank's attempts to loosen lending restrictions, new loans would be smaller in the fourth quarter.

The central bank imposed strict loan controls last year and the first half of 2008 to rein in credit growth and prevent the economy from overheating.

But it has since relaxed those limits and lifted loan quotas for lenders recently as China's economic growth slowed to 9.9 per cent in the first three quarters of the year from 11.9 per cent in the whole of 2007.

An unnamed central bank official provided the figures in an interview detailing how it planned to help put into effect Beijing's newly announced economic four trillion yuan stimulus package, the report said.

The central bank will continue to adjust interest rates and bank reserve requirements to ensure ample liquidity and stable credit growth, the official was quoted as saying.

New loans were also down sharply in the final quarter of 2007 at 272.1 billion yuan from 817.8 billion in the previous quarter. But this was due the central bank's moves to tighten monetary policy to cap credit growth and curb excessive liquidity. -- AFP