Both of the new approvals of residential mortgage loans and commercial real estate loans rose in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in August, the SAR's statistics bureau said on Thursday.

In August, the residential mortgage loans approved by Macao banks increased by 40.3 percent month-to-month to 7.3 billion patacas. The monthly average of residential mortgage loans approved between June and August was 6.7 billion patacas, up by 13.9 percent from the previous period (May to July 2018).

New approvals of commercial real estate loans also rose by 138.6 percent month-to-month to 9.8 billion patacas. The monthly average of commercial real estate loans approved between June and August was 6.8 billion patacas, up by 50.6 percent when compared with the previous period (May to July 2018).

As at the end of August 2018, the outstanding value of residential mortgage loans was 203.6 billion patacas, up by 2.0 percent from a month earlier, or up by 8.2 percent from a year ago. The outstanding value of commercial real estate loans decreased by 6.7 percent month-to-month but up 7.0 percent from a year earlier to 184.2 billion patacas. (1 U.S. dollar equals 8.06 patacas)