Macao's domestic loans to local private sector in January increased by 4 percent month on month to an equivalent of 206 billion patacas (25.79 billion U.S. dollars), according to the figures released on Tuesday by the Monetary Authority of Macao.

The figures also indicated that 31.6 percent of the domestic loans was pataca-denominated, while 59 percent was denominated in Hong Kong dollar.

Meanwhile, external loans increased by 8.7 percent month on month to 227.1 billion patacas (28.43 billion U.S. dollars), of which loans denominated in pataca and HKD accounted for 1.0 percent and 22.9 percent, respectively.

The loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at the end of January dropped 0.2 percentage points month on month to 47.8 percent. The ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors was 76.6 percent, up 1.3 percentage points from the end of December. Endi