BEIJING, Nov 11 (Reuters) - New Chinese local-currency bank loans totalled 3.7 trillion yuan in the first 10 months of the year, a news official for the People's Bank of China said on Tuesday.
New yuan lending in the first nine months totalled 3.48 trillion yuan, pointing to 220 billion yuan in fresh credit having been extended in October alone.
That would compare with 374.5 billion yuan in September and 136.1 billion yuan in October 2007.
The official was relaying excerpts of an interview that the PBOC gave to the Xinhua news agency setting out how the central bank plans to play its part in implementing the government's monetary and fiscal stimulus package announced on Sunday.
Xinhua did not distribute the interview over its main newswires.
The country's three "policy banks", which lend explicitly to promote government goals, would extend 100 billion yuan in credit to finance major investment projects, the PBOC news official said. (Reporting by Langi Chiang; Writing by Alan Wheatley) Keywords: CHINA ECONOMY/LENDING

(alan.wheatley@thomsonreuters.com; +86 10 6627 1235; alan.wheatley@reuters.com@reuters.net)

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