China's M2, the broad measure of money supply, jumped 17.3 percent to 36.41 trillion yuan (4.72 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of March, Li Xiaochao, spokesman with the National Bureau of Statistics, said on Thursday.

Li said at a press conference that the growth in M2, which covers cash in circulation plus all deposits, was down 1.5 percentage points from the same period last year.

The M1, the narrow measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and corporate demand deposits, rose 19.8 percent to 12.79 trillion yuan at end-March, 7.1 percentage points higher than the same period last year, he said.

He noted the outstanding loans of all financial institutions added 1.42 trillion yuan in the first three month to 23.96 trillion yuan and the outstanding deposits gained 1.88 trillion yuan to 35.42 trillion yuan at the end of March.

He noted China will continue to strengthen macro-control measures to solve prominent problems including the excessive liquidity and the huge international payments surplus.

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