Macao's domestic loans to the private sector reached 108.4 billion patacas (13.55 billion U.S. dollars) in May 2010, an increase of two percent over the previous month, according to the figures released on Thursday by the Monetary Authority of Macao.

Of the loans, 33 billion patacas was pataca-denominated and 67. 9 billion patacas was denominated in Hong Kong dollar, representing 30.5 percent and 62.6 percent of the total respectively.

External loans in the period grew by 1.2 percent month-to-month to 109.3 billion patacas (13.6 billion dollars), of which, loans denominated in pataca and HK dollar accounted for 0.8 percent and 40.3 percent of the total respectively, according to the Monetary Authority.

Due to the decline in resident deposits and increase in domestic loans to the private sector, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector at the end of May 2010 rose 1.0 percentage points month-to-month to 47.8 percent, with the ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors standing at 73.1 percent, the Authority also said.