Shanxi's banks extended a record high 82.47 billion yuan ($11.98 billion) in new yuan loans in the first quarter of 2017, the Taiyuan branch of the People's Bank of China (PBC), the central bank, revealed on April 18.

At the end of last month, total outstanding yuan-denominated loans stood at 2.11 trillion yuan, up 11.1 percent compared with the previous year.

Nearly 63 percent of the new loans, or 51.33 billion yuan, were medium and long-term credit mainly for provincial key projects, livelihood projects and infrastructure construction. Its share of the total was up by nearly 20 percent year-on-year.

According to staff at PBC's Taiyuan branch, the growth in medium and long-term credit showed that the province's real economy was firming up and support for it had not eased.

Yuan-denominated deposits in the province also saw an increase of 10.4 percent in the first quarter, with outstanding deposits worth nearly 3.28 trillion yuan.