G○ VERNOR'S ADDRESS The year 2013 was the first year for the implementation of the spirit of the 18 CPC Na tional Congress and a pivotal year for accelerating the transformation of the pattern of eco nomic development. Faced with complicated and challenging domestic and external economic and financial environment, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and following the principle of making progress while maintaining stability, the People's Bank of China(PBC)strengthened and improved macroeconomic management, accelerated financial reform, opening-up and development and attached great importance to maintaining financial stability, creating a favorable monetary and financial environment for the sustained and sound development of the national economy. Strengthening and improving macroeconomic management Macroeconomic management faced significant challenges in 2013. In particular, during the first half of the year, domestic economy faced greater downward pressures with more enterpris es experiencing difficulties in business, and the money market fluctuated, posing tremendous pressures on the PBC to ease monetary policy. Confronted with the complicated situation, the PBC upheld the macroeconomic management orientation of"maintaining aggregates at stable levels and improving the structure, continued the prudent monetary policy, strengthened macro-prudential management, and innovated management strategies and methods. The PBC remained sober-minded, maintained a focus on policy measures, neither loosening nor tight ening monetary policy, and when necessary conducted preemptive adjustment and fine-tuning with appropriate strength. The PBC conducted flexible open market operations in both direc tions, and created the instruments of Short-term Liquidity Operations and Standing Lending Facility, maintained a reasonable and abundant level of liquidity in the banking system and promoted overall stability in the money market. It also guided financial institutions to use new credit well and revitalize existing assets to promote reasonable and appropriate growth of gregate financing to the real M2 by13.6 percent, RMB-denominated loans increase by 8.89 trillion yuan, and aggregate financing toThe year 2013 was the first year for the implementation of the spirit of the 18th CPC Na￾tional Congress and a pivotal year for accelerating the transformation of the pattern of eco￾nomic development. Faced with complicated and challenging domestic and external economic and financial environment, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and following the principle of making progress while maintaining stability, the People’s Bank of China (PBC) strengthened and improved macroeconomic management, accelerated financial reform, opening-up and development and attached great importance to maintaining financial stability, creating a favorable monetary and financial environment for the sustained and sound development of the national economy. Strengthening and improving macroeconomic management Macroeconomic management faced significant challenges in 2013. In particular, during the first half of the year, domestic economy faced greater downward pressures with more enterpris￾es experiencing difficulties in business, and the money market fluctuated, posing tremendous pressures on the PBC to ease monetary policy. Confronted with the complicated situation, the PBC upheld the macroeconomic management orientation of “maintaining aggregates at stable levels and improving the structure,” continued the prudent monetary policy, strengthened macro-prudential management, and innovated management strategies and methods. The PBC remained sober-minded, maintained a focus on policy measures, neither loosening nor tight￾ening monetary policy, and when necessary conducted preemptive adjustment and fine-tuning with appropriate strength. The PBC conducted flexible open market operations in both direc￾tions, and created the instruments of Short-term Liquidity Operations and Standing Lending Facility, maintained a reasonable and abundant level of liquidity in the banking system and promoted overall stability in the money market. It also guided financial institutions to use new credit well and revitalize existing assets to promote reasonable and appropriate growth of money, credit and aggregate financing to the real economy. The year 2013 saw M2 grow by 13.6 percent, RMB-denominated loans increase by 8.89 trillion yuan, and aggregate financing to GOVERNOR’S ADDRESS