Legal cases involving private loans reached 12,035 in Wenzhou in the first seven months of this year, almost identical to the same period last year, according to the city's intermediate people's court, China News Service reported on Monday.

The cases involve more than 8 billion yuan ($1.3 billion). Eleven local grassroots courts have set up financial divisions to handle the large amount of financial disputes, statistics from Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court show.

The court also issued guidance on hearing the private-lending cases, which explains legal terms like enterprise' financing activities, or marital debts, and the evidentiary effect of registration materials. The court action also standardized the rules for judging cases.

Wenzhou is suffering from a credit crisis after many businessmen fled the city to avoid repaying their high-interest debts to private lenders.