Chinese banks issued 7.97 trillion yuan (about 1.17 trillion U.S. dollars) of new yuan-denominated lending in the first half of the year, the country's central bank said Wednesday.

This represents a growth of 436.2 billion yuan from the same period last year, the People's Bank of China said in a statement.

By the end of June, total outstanding yuan-denominated loans stood at 114.57 trillion yuan, up 12.9 percent year on year.

In June alone, a total of 1.54 trillion yuan of yuan-denominated loans were issued by Chinese banks, an increase of 153.3 billion yuan from June last year.

M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, expanded 9.4 percent from a year earlier as of the end of June, slowdown from a 9.6 percent growth recorded a month ago, the statement said.

The newly added total social financing, another significant financing gauge, increased by 1.36 trillion yuan from the same period a year ago to 11.17 trillion yuan in the first half.