BEIJING - China will maintain a prudent monetary policy this year with "timely and appropriate adjustment", the People's Bank of China (PBOC), or the central bank, said Sunday on the closing of a work conference of the central bank.

The PBOC will adjust credit supply and keep social financing at a reasonable growth under a macro-prudential policy frame with a set of policy tools, such as interest rates, exchange rates, open market operations and banks' reserve requirement ratio, said the central bank in a statement on its website.

The PBOC said that it will strive to optimize credit structure and better serve the development of real economy, with more emphasis on the agricultural sector, the affordable housing projects and the small and micro-enterprises.

China's central bank on Sunday said in a separate statement that the country's new yuan-denominated lending in 2011 reached 7.47 trillion yuan ($1.18 trillion), down from 7.95 trillion yuan in 2010.