China's new yuan-denominated lending reached 1.01 trillion yuan (160.32 billion U.S. dollars) in March, up 332 billion yuan compared with a year earlier, the central bank said Thursday.

The figure also jumped from 710.7 billion yuan in February this year and 738 billion yuan in January, according to People's Bank of China.

The country's financial institutions issued a total of 2.46 trillion yuan in new loans in the first three months, slightly higher than the 2.24 trillion yuan issued during the same period last year.

Preliminary data showed the country's social financing, a measure of funds raised by entities in the real economy, totaled 1.86 trillion yuan last month, soaring 78.23 percent from February, the central bank said.

First-quarter social financing stood at 3.88 trillion yuan, or 348.7 billion yuan less than the same period of last year, it said.

By the end of March, the country's foreign exchange reserves, which are the world's largest, hit 3.31 trillion U.S. dollars, compared with 3.18 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of December.

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