MACAO, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- The total deposits in Macao's banking sector grew 0.4 percent from a month earlier to 1,061.1 billion patacas (about 131.7 billion U.S. dollars), the special administrative region's monetary watchdog said on Friday.

According to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, resident deposits grew 0.9 percent from last month to 606.1 billion patacas (about 75.2 billion U.S. dollars) whereas non-resident deposits fell 1.8 percent to 236.3 billion patacas (about 29.3 billion U.S. dollars).

On the other hand, public sector deposits with the banking sector increased 1.7 percent to 218.7 billion patacas (about 27.1 billion U.S. dollars).

Monetary Authority also said the domestic loans to the private sector fell 0.6 percent from a month ago to 478.5 billion patacas (about 59.4 billion U.S. dollars) while external loans also dropped 0.6 percent to 503.2 billion patacas (about 62.4 billion U.S. dollars).

As a result, total loans to the private sector decreased 0.6 percent from a month earlier to 981.6 billion patacas (about 121.8 billion U.S. dollars).

At the end of August, the loan-to-deposit ratio for the resident sector dropped from 59.0 percent at the end of July to 58.0 percent. Meanwhile, the ratio for both the resident and non-resident sectors fell from 93.5 percent to 92.5 percent.