Some Chinese banks have hiked interest rates on loans by as much as 45 percent in a drastic move to rein in credit growth after a lending surge this month, state media reported Wednesday.

State-owned banks had handed out 1.2 trillion yuan ($182.3 billion) in new loans by January 24, the China Business News reported -- more than twice the amount issued in December and equal to 15 percent of last year's total. The surge in new loans this month suggests banks are defying government efforts to stem a flood of liquidity into the economy, which has been blamed for fanning inflation and pushing up property prices.

Beijing has increased the amount of money banks must keep in reserve seven times in the past 12 months, and raised interest rates twice since October. The country's one-year lending and deposit rates stand at 5.81 percent and 2.75 percent respectively. To reduce the volume of new loans, bank head offices have issued instructions to their branches to hike lending rates by 10-45 percent to "ensure the amount of new loans does not exceed the quota", the China Securities Journal said, citing an unnamed official at a large bank.

Chinese banks are allowed to extend between 7.2 trillion yuan and 7.5 trillion yuan in new loans this year, the newspaper reported previously. New lending reached 7.95 trillion yuan in 2010, exceeding the government's full-year target of 7.5 trillion yuan but less than the previous year's explosion, which saw new loans nearly double to 9.6 trillion yuan.