BEIJING -- New yuan-denominated loans issued by China's micro-credit companies hit 97.7 billion yuan ($15.51 billion) in the first half of the year, the central bank said Monday.

Their outstanding loans stood at 489.3 billion yuan as of the end of June, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website.

The number of micro-credit companies bloomed from less than 500 firms in 2008 to more than 5,000 as of June this year, according to data from the People's Bank of China and the China Micro-Credit Institution Joint Council, a self-regulatory organization.

In recent years, micro-lending companies have become an important channel for private capital to enter the financial market.