China's 8,000 microcredit firms lend big

BEIJING - China had 7,839 microcredit firms by the end of 2013, which made 227 billion yuan ($37 billion) in new loans last year, according to the central bank.

The total loan balance reached 819.1 billion yuan, statistics from the People's Bank of China showed.

Microfinancers are concentrated in Jiangsu, Liaoning, Anhui and Hebei provinces and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, with East China's Jiangsu province outnumbering others with 573 microcredit firms.

Microcredit is grassroots financing of small loans to farmers, enterprises and entrepreneurs.

The institutions are expected to play a bigger role in the real economy as China shifts away from an economy led by investment to one driven by consumption.