The total assets of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the nation's central bank, have balloonedup 119 percent to 28 trillion yuan ($4.5 trillion) in the past five years, making it the world's biggest central bank in terms of total assets, China Business News reported, citing a report from the?Standard Chartered Bank.

The PBOC has outpaced the European Central Bank (ECB) whose total assets reached $3.5 trillion at the end of 2011. The Federal Reserve came in as the third largest with total assets of $3 trillion.

The Standard Chartered report said China's central bank, instead of ECB or the Federal Reserve, is now the major supplier of the global liquidity. The PBOC saw an increase of 146 percent in its broad money supply (M2) during the last five years. In 2011 alone, China's M2 supply accounted for 52 percent of the world's total.

The report attributed China's M2 boom to the bank's credit expansion, government's incentive measures which relying on credit and created demand to combat economic slowdown and the PBOC's purchase of foreign exchanges to stabilize renminbi rate.

Yet, that sharp increase of M2 would create inflationary pressure, so the growth rate may slow down in the future, the Standard Chartered report added, predicting the nation's M2 growth rate to stand between 13 to 14 percent this year, lower than the rates in previous years.

滬江英語快訊：中國央行世界第一！根據(jù)渣打銀行發(fā)布的報(bào)告，中國央行已經(jīng)成為世界上最大的央行，其總資產(chǎn)在2011年年末達(dá)到了28萬億人民幣（約合4.5萬億美元），而歐洲央行和美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的資產(chǎn)分別只有3.5萬億美元和3萬億美元。

滬江科普：什么是M2？

M0、M1、M2、M3都是用來反映貨幣供應(yīng)量的重要指標(biāo)。國際上大致的劃分是：

貨幣（M0）=流通中的現(xiàn)金，即流通于銀行體系之外的現(xiàn)金

狹義貨幣（M1）=（M0）流通中的現(xiàn)金+支票存款（以及轉(zhuǎn)賬信用卡存款）?

廣義貨幣（M2）=M1+儲(chǔ)蓄存款（包括活期和定期儲(chǔ)蓄存款）+政府債券

另外還有M3=M2+其他短期流動(dòng)資產(chǎn)（如國庫券、銀行承兌匯票、商業(yè)票據(jù)等）

M1反映著經(jīng)濟(jì)中的現(xiàn)實(shí)購買力；M2不僅反映現(xiàn)實(shí)的購買力，還反映潛在的購買力。若M1增速較快，則消費(fèi)和終端市場活躍；若M2增速較快，則投資和中間市場活躍。中央銀行和各商業(yè)銀行可以據(jù)此判定貨幣政策。M2過高而M1過低，表明投資過熱、需求不旺，有危機(jī)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)；M1過高M(jìn)2過低，表明需求強(qiáng)勁、投資不足，有漲價(jià)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。