Chinese consumers deposited much more money in banks in January than they did in the same month last year.

Poor income growth -- 7 percent for urbanites and 2 percent for farmers in 2000 -- is blamed for the increase.

January is usually a peak-spending period because of the Chinese New Year.

But this year, banks seemed to have attracted a larger proportion of consumers' money.

The People's Bank of China said Monday that Chinese individuals saved 224 billion yuan (US$27 billion) last month, which was up 136 billion yuan (US$16 billion) on January 2000.

The growth is very significant compared to figures for the same month in previous years, the central bank said in a monthly report on the financial sector's performance.

In general, the central bank said the financial sector was stable last month.

By the end of January, outstanding loans of all financial institutions grew 14.3 percent to 10 trillion yuan (US$1.2 trillion), the report said.

Loans grew by 12.1 percent in 2000.

Loan growth is a key barometre for economic policy makers in monitoring economic activity.

(China Daily 02/13/2001)