BEIJING, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's credit structure had been improved as a result of risk reduction, despite the dramatic surge in new loans in the first half, the country's banking regulator said here Sunday.

    Chinese lenders granted 7.72 trillion yuan (1.14 trillion U.S. dollars) of both local and foreign currency loans in the first half of this year, an increase of 4.99 trillion yuan from a year ago, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said in a report on its website.

    More loans had been channeled to the country's less developed western regions, according to the CBRC.

    It said among the top five provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities that had seen fastest increase in loans, four are in western China, while nine of the top ten are in mid or western China.

    More than half, or 51.6 percent, of the longer-term yuan-denominated loans -- 1.6 trillion yuan -- have been dedicated to infrastructure projects that would improve public facilities, according to the report.

    Among the total, 892.1 billion yuan were for public facilities such as water conservation and environmental protection and others, 524.9 billion yuan for public transport, cargo storage and the postal sector, and 180.7 billion yuan for power generation, and production and supplies of gas and water.

    In the first half, more than half of corporate loans, or 54.3 percent, had been lent to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the CBRC said.

    At the end of June, outstanding loans to SMEs stood at 13.7 trillion yuan, up 2.7 trillion yuan, or 24.1 percent, from the beginning of the year. The loan growth was 1.5 percentage points higher than the overall corporate loans.

    Growth in loans to the rural sector also outpaced that of total loans, by 2.7 percentage points. The outstanding loans to the rural sector reached 8.3 trillion yuan at the end of June, up 23 percent from the beginning of the year.

    Credit for personal consumption also rose in the first half. The outstanding loans dedicated to personal consumption was 4.4 trillion yuan at the end of June.

    It represented an increase of 650.8 billion yuan in the first half, which was 392 billion yuan more than a year ago due to a surge in home mortgage loans and a rapid growth in auto loans.

    The non-performing loans (NPL) at the country's commercial banks continued to fall, despite the loan surge, down 42.7 billion yuan from the beginning of the year to 520.8 billion yuan at the end of June. The NPL ratio fell 0.64 percentage point to 1.8 percent.

    The structure of loan growth was in line with the country's macro control policies, the CBRC said.