Half of China's bankers think

People's Bank of China (PBOC) issued a report Tuesday, saying 51.7 percent of the bankers responding to a survey thought the nation's monetary policy would not change in the next three months.

It was a decline of 14.3 percentage points compared with a previous survey for the last quarter.

The recent survey found 60.5 percent of the bankers regarded the current monetary policies as "moderate," or 5.9 percent lower than in the fourth quarter in 2009.

The survey covered governors or person-in-charge of the headquarters of the nation's 2,900 banking institutions by the PBOC.

China's Consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, soared to a 16-month high to stand at 2.7 percent in February, and triggered expectations that the government would slash bank lending to cool down the economy.

The country's new yuan-denominated lending in February stood at 700.1 billion yuan ( $102.65 billion ), half that of January's 1.39 trillion yuan, data from the PBOC showed.

China targeted an annual 7.5 trillion yuan of new loans this year, after it extended a total of 9.6 trillion yuan in new loans last year.

The central bank has raised the reserve requirement ratio that banks have to set aside twice this year in order to absorb "comparatively loose liquidity."