BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's key business news from the past week:
FOREIGN TRADE
China's foreign trade registered stable growth in the first quarter thanks to robust performance in March, as the country's sound economic growth supported supply and demand.
China's foreign trade of goods climbed 3.7 percent year on year in Q1 to 7.01 trillion yuan (1.04 trillion U.S. dollars), the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Friday.
Exports increased by 6.7 percent year-on-year to 3.77 trillion yuan in the first three months, while imports went up by 0.3 percent to 3.24 trillion yuan, the GAC said.
NEW YUAN LOANS
China's new yuan-denominated loans stood at 1.69 trillion yuan in March 2019, up 577.7 billion yuan year on year, central bank data showed Friday.
In the first three months, the country's new yuan-denominated loans increased by 952.6 billion yuan year on year to hit 5.81 trillion yuan, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).
The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 8.6 percent year on year to 188.94 trillion yuan at the end of March, according to the PBOC.
The M2 growth was 0.6 percentage points and 0.4 percentage points higher from the levels at the end of February and the same period last year, respectively.
CONSUMER, PRODUCER PRICES
The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Thursday that China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.3 percent year on year in March, compared with 1.5-percent growth in February.
Food prices climbed 4.1 percent year on year, up from 0.7 percent in February.
Thursday's data also showed China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs of goods at the factory gate, rose 0.4 percent year on year in March, picking up from the 0.1-percent flat growth in February.
