Bank loans increased rapidly in China's financial center of Shanghai in April this year despite government efforts to rein in excessive lending.

Outstanding loans grew by 25.3 billion yuan (3.2 billion U.S. dollars) in Shanghai last month, up 260 million yuan from March and 14.3 billion yuan from the same period of last year, according to the latest report from the Shanghai Headquarters of the People's Bank of China.

Most of the loans went to the manufacturing, water conservancy, real estate and retail and wholesale sectors, said the report.

Domestic banks contributed 13.3 billion yuan, up 7.9 billion yuan, while the remaining 11.9 billion yuan was given by foreign-funded banks, up 6.3 billion yuan.

Although credit supply from small to medium sized banks showed signs of slowing down, state-owned commercial banks and foreign-funded ones experienced fast growth in their outstanding loans.

In April, Renminbi loans increased by 6.84 billion yuan in state-owned commercial banks and 7.2 billion yuan in foreign-funded banks, up 9.9 billion yuan and 4.6 billion yuan respectively, while other banks reported an increase of 5.01 billion yuan, up 330 million yuan.

Personal consumer loans in Renminbi increased by 1.1 billion yuan, half of which were housing loans.