Macao's domestic loans to local private sector grew at a significantly faster pace last December, with its value increasing by 4.9 percent over the previous month to 130.5 billion patacas (16.31 billion U.S. dollars), according to the figures released on Wednesday by the Monetary Authority of Macao.

Some 37.5 billion patacas (4.68 billion dollars) of the domestic loans was pataca-denominated while 83.8 billion patacas ( 10.47 billion dollars) was denominated in HKD, representing 28.8 percent and 64.2 percent of the total respectively, the figures indicated.

Meanwhile, external loans increased by one percent month-to- month to 115.3 billion patacas (14.41 billion dollars), of which loans denominated in pataca and HKD accounted for 0.4 percent and 41.3 percent respectively.

As domestic loans to the private sector grew faster than resident deposits, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at the end of last December rose 1.4 percentage points month-to-month to 50.1 percent.

The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors stood at 72.3 percent in the period, up by 0.7 percentage point from the previous month.