BEIJING - Outstanding loans extended by China's micro-credit companies amounted to 924.1 billion yuan ($134.44 billion) by the end of June, central bank data showed Thursday.

The volume was down 30.4 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

By the end of last month, the number of micro-credit companies in China came in at 7,797, the People's Bank of China said in an online statement.

Micro-lenders largely target small companies and low-income groups in need of capital. In recent years, micro-lending companies have become an important channel for medium and small firms as well as individuals to access funds.

The central bank report showed East China's Jiangsu province had 565 small-credit companies by June, the most of any provincial-level region, followed by Liaoning province in the Northeast and Guangdong province in the South of China.