New residential mortgage loans (RMLs)approved by Macao banks amounted to 2.3 billion patacas (291 million U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2009, an increase of 36 percent compared with the fourth quarter of last year, according to the figures released on Wednesday by the Monetary Authority of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).

The figures showed that the outstanding value of RMLs reached 34.9 billion patacas (4.4 billion dollars) at the end of March, up1.7 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, new commercial real estate loans (CRELs) approved by local banks increased notably by 54.7 percent to two billion patacas (253 million dollars), of which, 75.6 percent was granted to local residents, according to the Monetary Authority. The outstanding value of CRELs rose by 3.1 percent to 35.2 billion patacas (4.46 billion dollars) in the period.

As for delinquency ratios, those for RMLs stood at 0.24 percent in the period, up slightly by 0.04 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, whereas those for CRELs slid 0.01 percentage point to 0.55 percent, the Monetary Authority said.

Source: Xinhua