The average daily balance of bank lending extended its slide into the seventh consecutive year in 2003, the Bank of Japan said Tuesday in a preliminary report.

The figure was down 4.8 percent from a year earlier to 405.18 trillion yen, the BOJ said.

The lending fell 7.7 percent at three types of major banks and 4 percent at second-tier regional banks, but it edged up 0.4 percent at regional banks for the first rise in five years, the central bank said.