China aims to set this year's social financing amount at around 14 trillion yuan (2.14 trillion U.S. dollars), the People's Bank of China, or the central bank, said Thursday at a news briefing.

The figure was smaller than the 14.27 trillion yuan in 2010, the central bank said in a statement on its website. The social financing in the first quarter this year stood at 4.19 trillion yuan.

It is the first time China has published the indicator, which gauges the overall pace of fund raising to help the central bank judge how much liquidity is in the financial system. The concept was first introduced by the central bank in December last year.

It includes all the funds raised by entities in China's real economy during a certain period of time, such as loans of local and foreign currencies, entrusted loans, trust loans, bank acceptance bills, corporate bonds, equity financing, foreign direct investment and foreign debt.

Analysts sees the indicator as a better one than new bank lending to assess liquidity in the economy.

Chinese regulators are changing their focus to a broader concept because it is too narrow to look at bank lending alone as the economy evolves, Sheng Songcheng, head of the statistics department at the central bank, said in February.

The new bank lending volume can no longer fully reflect the relationship between finance and the economy and the actual financing volume of the real economy, he said.

In the future, China would better regulate total social financing by improving the financial statistical system and enhancing the cooperation between the central bank and other financial supervisors, Sheng said.