Bank deposit balances of the City of Zhuhai exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($157 billion) as of the end of April, the Zhuhai Central Branch of the People's Bank of China reported May 26.

In Guangdong Province, only Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Foshan have more money in the bank. It took Zhuhai 28 years to go above 100 billion yuan ($15.7 billion) in deposit balance in 2005 and a further 15 years and 4 months to now top 1 trillion yuan.

Zhuhai sees robust growth in its bank deposit balance (shown is Hengqin Financial Island) [Photo by Ye Qiuming / Zhuhai Media Group]

Households and non-financial enterprises are major contributors to such growth, accounting for 23.7 percent and 56.6 percent respectively of local deposit balances. The proportion of non-financial enterprises ranks first in the province due to the booming development of leading enterprises and strong financing capability of capital markets.

In the meantime, Zhuhai's loan balance grew by 16.7 percent to 820.34 billion yuan ($128.7 billion), of which households and enterprises made up for 39.4 percent and 57.5 percent respectively. The loan-to-deposit ratio hit a record high of 80.8 percent. Financing demands of infrastructure, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, real estate, and construction activities accounted for 80.2 percent to the ratio rise over the past 15 years.

The city's deposit balance accounted for 3.7 percent of Guangdong's total in late April, 1 percentage point higher than the proportion in 2006, while its loan balance accounted for 3.9 percent of the province's total, 1.9 percentage points higher than in 2006. Local deposit and loan balances have ranked fifth in Guangdong for years, whereas the gap with cities like Dongguan and Foshan has significantly narrowed.

Zhuhai has 47 banks with 502 service outlets, more than 11,000 employees, 39 branches, and eight legal entities. The number is second only to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Foshan, and the variety of legal entities second only to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Market share of the four big State-owned banks has been dropping with the inflow of joint-stock banks and legal entities.