BEIJING - China made new headway in the development of green finance in 2018 as the country's high-quality growth continuously injects impetus into the sector, said a central bank report Tuesday.

China's green finance market has maintained steady expansion with product and service innovations springing up last year, according to an annual report on China's green finance development released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

Green bond issuance exceeded 280 billion yuan ($40 billion) last year, while outstanding green loans from the nationwide banking institutions reached 8.23 trillion yuan, up 16 percent year-on-year.

New product and service models such as green funds, green insurance and green trust kept emerging, which contributed to widening the financing channels for green projects and lowering their financing costs and risks, said the report.

The fast development of the sector has helped promote China's high-quality development, replacing old growth drivers with new ones, pollution prevention and improvement of energy utilization, it said.

The PBOC vows to further strengthen theoretical research, formulate a system of standards, optimize the institutional environment and encourage product and service innovations of green finance to boost the sector's commercial sustainability.