Macao's broad money supply retreats in April

MACAO, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Macao's broad money supply retreated by 0.5 percent month on month to 723.2 billion patacas (about 89.6 billion U.S. dollars) in April, the special administrative region's (SAR) monetary watchdog said on Monday.

According to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, currency in circulation rose 0.7 percent, whereas demand deposits dropped 4.7 percent. M1 thus decreased 3.2 percent from one month earlier.

Meanwhile, quasi-monetary liabilities fell 0.2 percent. The sum of these two items, broad money supply or M2, retreated 0.5 percent to 723.2 billion patacas.

On an annual basis, M1 and M2 rose 1.6 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

The shares of the pataca, the Hong Kong dollar, the renminbi and the U.S. dollar in M2 were 34.8 percent, 45.3 percent, 8.1 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively.

According to the official data, resident deposits decreased 0.5 percent from the preceding month to 702.3 billion patacas, while non-resident deposits dropped 2.6 percent to 291.4 billion patacas.

Meanwhile, public sector deposits with the banking sector decreased 3.7 percent to 219.6 billion patacas.

As a result, total deposits in the banking sector fell 1.6 percent from a month earlier to 1,213.2 billion patacas. (1 pataca equals 0.12 U.S. dollars)