UPDATE 1-China's Oct new loans hit 300-400 bln yuan -report

BEIJING, Nov 3 (Reuters) - New bank lending in China may have hit 300-400 billion yuan ($44-59 billion) in October, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday, broadly in line with market expectations.

The newspaper cited unnamed bankers who based the estimate, which is lower than the 516.7 billion yuan total in September, on a reported rise in new lending by the country's biggest banks.

Lending by the four biggest banks "clearly recovered" in October, climbing to 136 billion yuan from 110 billion yuan in September, the official China Securities Newspaper reported.

The report mentioned nothing about lending by the scores of smaller banks such as city-commercial banks that have driven loan growth in recent months.

The big four banks, which have typically accounted for about half of loan issuance, granted less than a quarter last month.

After an unprecedented surge of 7.37 trillion yuan in new loans in the first half, Chinese banks have slowed their pace of lending in the second half. Many analysts think the full-year total will come in at about 10 trillion yuan, which would require about 400 billion yuan of new loans in each of the remaining months.

Strong bank lending is an important factor underlying China's quick economic recovery, and China Construction Bank said in a research note that GDP growth would exceed 10 percent in the fourth quarter, reaching 8.3 percent for all of 2009.

CCB added that it believed the central bank was unlikely to implement serious monetary tightening anytime soon, forecasting no interest rate or required reserve ratio increases in the fourth quarter and the yuan appreciating only 0.2 percent against the dollar during that time.

Of the top four banks, China Securities Journal said that: