Lending to British businesses dropped nearly 5 billion pounds (about 7.66 billion U.S. dollars) in the three months to February, according to figures released by the central bank on Friday.

Data collected from all Britain-resident banks and building societies indicated that lending to British businesses in the December-February period decreased by 4.8 billion pounds on the yearly basis, a fall of 4.4 percent. Month on month, the February figure is also 2.8 billion pounds less than that of the previous month.

In the 12 months ending in February, loans to businesses declined 3.1 percent year on year.

"The stock of lending to both small and medium-sized enterprises and large businesses contracted over this period", said the Bank of England in its Trends in Lending report.

Loans to real estate sector, which accounts for around 40 percent of the total stock of business loans, had decreased since the second quarter of 2012.

Figures indicated that lending to the real estate fell by 5.3 percent in December last year from a year earlier, the sharpest drop for more than three years.

The report found that some lender expected lending to the real estate sector to be flat or contract slightly in 2013.

The report also showed that secured lending to individuals was broadly unchanged, and mortgage approvals for house purchase fell slightly in the three months.

The value of mortgage lending increased by 0.7 percent in the three months to February compared to the previous three months.

The figure from the central bank is in keeping with the previous official figures on construction sector.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), total volume of the construction output in February was 7 percent lower than in the same month last year

Construction estimates account for just 6.8 percent of GDP, and has provided some of the main downward contributions to total output since the recession.

"Construction output is highly responsive to the economic cycle and has fallen by 16.5 percent when comparing the last quarter of 2012 with the first quarter of 2008," said the ONS. Enditem

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