BEIJING - New yuan-denominated lending in China reached 7.95 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) last year, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, said Tuesday.

The figure was 1.65 trillion yuan less than the 2009 level, said the bank in a statement on its website.

New yuan-denominated loans in December last year stood at 480.7 billion yuan.

The country's foreign exchange reserves reached $2.85 trillion by the end of last year, up 18.7 percent from a year earlier, said the statement.

China's broad money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, had increased 19.7 percent year-on-year to 72.58 trillion yuan at the end of last year.

The growth rate was 8 percentage points slower from a year ago, but still exceeded the government target of 17 percent.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), cash in circulation plus current corporate deposits, climbed 21.2 percent from a year earlier to 26.66 trillion yuan.

Chinese government had been working to tighten bank lending to curb liquidity and restrain assets bubbles by increasing one-year lending and deposit interest rate twice and bank reserve requirement ratio six times in 2010.