China's money supply and lending growth remained stable in April with the broad measure of money supply, or M2, rising 17.1 percent from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China said yesterday on its website.

M2 includes cash and all deposits. The growth was 0.2 percentage point down from March, showing a stable trend in money supply in recent months, although it broke the target level of 16 percent set by the central bank for this year.

Analysts said central bank measures have worked to slow down money supply growth after it raised commercial banks?reserve requirement ratio seven times and interest rates three times within a year.

The rate of M2 growth peaked at 19.2 percent in January 2006.

The narrow measurement of money supply which includes cash and demand deposits, or M1, grew by 20 percent in April year-on-year, the fourth month since last May when the rate hovered close to 20 percent. It was the fifth month the rate was higher than M2 growth.

Source: China Daily