BEIJING -- China issued over 1.18 trillion yuan ($166.1 billion) worth of mortgage loans from the housing provident fund in 2022, benefitting more home buyers, official data showed Thursday.

The interest rates on these loans are 0.9 to 1.35 percentage points lower than the benchmark loan prime rate, which is estimated to save borrowers around 208.9 billion yuan in interest payments, according to a report jointly released by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the People's Bank of China.

Over 67.83 million people withdrew a total of 2.14 trillion yuan from the fund last year, the report reveals.

The number of entities and persons contributing to the fund are up by 8.8 percent and 3.31 percent over the previous year, respectively. Employees at urban private companies are making up higher percentages of personal contributors, said the report.

Chongqing and five other cities have established pilot projects to promote the coverage of the fund among new urban residents and young people, with a view to meeting their housing needs. A total of 220,300 flexibly employed people are now covered by the fund in those cities.