Fears that a possibly overheating economy might produce inflation and a slew of new bad loans remained strong as M2 money supply grew 20.7 per cent in July, reported China Daily. The People's Bank of China noted that this growth had exceeded the combined GDP growth and consumer price index in the first half of this year by 11.9 percentage points. New loans, a major cause of money supply growth, more than doubled from a year ago to Yn1,880bn in the first seven months of 2003.