China's mortgage loans fall, property development loans rise

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's mortgage loans dropped further at the end of June while property development loans picked up, central bank data showed on Friday, as authorities seeks to put a floor under the struggling real estate sector.

China's outstanding individual mortgage loans totalled 37.79 trillion yuan ($5.33 trillion) at the end of June, down 2.1% from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China said.

That compared with a fall of 1.9% at the end of March, earlier official data showed.

Outstanding property development loans - or loans for developers - totalled 13.77 trillion yuan at the end of June, up 2.8% from a year earlier, according to the central bank data. That marks an acceleration from a 1.7% rise at the end of March.

China's overall property loans totalled 53.1 trillion yuan at end-June, down 1% from the previous year, the central bank said. Such loans fell 1.1% year-on-year at end-March.

To bolster economic growth, the government has in recent months unveiled a raft of steps to support the property sector.

In May, the PBOC launched a 300 billion yuan relending programme to facilitate up to 500 billion yuan in funding for state-owned firms to buy empty apartments and turn them into affordable housing.

($1 = 7.0888 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Ros Russell)