China's financing activity remained tepid as the increment in aggregate social financing — the total amount of financing to the real economy — stood at 18.1 trillion yuan ($2.49 trillion) in the first half of 2024, down by 3.45 trillion yuan compared with the same period of last year, official data showed.

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said on Friday that China's outstanding aggregate social financing came in at 395.11 trillion yuan as of the end of June, up 8.1 percent year-on-year, compared with 8.4 percent by the end of May.

Meanwhile, the PBOC said that the increment in yuan-denominated loans came in at 13.27 trillion yuan in the first six months of the year, compared with 11.14 trillion yuan during the first five months.

The broad money supply, or M2, stood at 305.02 trillion yuan as of the end of June, up 6.2 percent year-on-year, down from 7 percent a month earlier.