Financial support for China's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is on the increase, the China Securities Journal reported Friday, citing a senior of the central bank.

The balance of loans to SMEs was 19.79 trillion yuan ($3.1 trillion) as of the end of May, up 18.7 percent year-on-year, said Sheng Songcheng, the head of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the People's Bank of China.

The growth rate is 8.4 percentage points higher than that of large enterprises, said Sheng, and it is also 5.2 percentage points higher than that before the financial crisis in 2008.

Loans to SMEs account for the majority of bank lendings to enterprises, accounting for 59.8 percent of the total. The portion rose 1.8 percentage points year-on-year, and was 19.6 percentage points higher than that of large enterprises. It is also 3.5 percentage points higher than the year-end level of 2008, said Sheng.