China Record Credit Growth Boosts Outlook for Economy

Record new credit in China in January will help the economy maintain momentum while highlighting challenges for officials trying to limit the risk of financial turbulence from defaults and bad loans.

Aggregate financing, the broadest measure of credit, was 2.58 trillion yuan ($425 billion), the People’s Bank of China said in a Feb. 15 statement. New local-currency lending was 1.32 trillion yuan, the highest level since 2010. Trust loans, under scrutiny because of default risks, were about half the level of a year earlier.