Chinese financial institutions' non-performing loans (NPL) ratio edged down 0.1 percentage points to 1.48 percent in January, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said Friday.

China's banks reported 483 billion yuan (70.7 billion U.S. dollars) of NPL at end-January, down 14.3 billion yuan from the beginning of the month, the CBRC, China's top banking regulator, said in a statement on its website.

Chinese banks' total assets rose 25.5 percent over the year to end-January to 80.5 trillion yuan, the statement said.

New loans in January totaled 1.39 trillion yuan, down 230 billion yuan from January 2009.

CBRC Chairman Liu Mingkang said the Chinese government will restrict credit supply to 7.5 trillion yuan in 2010.

The CBRC issued two directives on working capital loans and personal loans on Feb. 21. The directive ordered banks to manage risk carefully and to verify that loans are used for their intended purposes.

The two directives were the latest measures to guard against bad loans after Chinese banks lent massive amounts in 2009.