China's outstanding foreign debt climbs to $642.5b

Updated: 2011-09-16 16:59

(Xinhua)

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BEIJING - China's outstanding foreign debt amounted to $642.5 billion as of the end of June, the country's State Administration of Foreign Exchanges said Sept 16.

The amount rose from the $585.97 billion recorded at the end of March and does not include the outstanding external debt of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), the Macao SAR and Taiwan, the agency said in a statement on its website.

Outstanding long- and medium-term foreign debt stood at $180.4 billion by the end of June, while the figure for short-term foreign debt was $462.1 billion, the statement said.

Outstanding trade loans and financing reached $348.2 billion, accounting for 75 percent of China's outstanding short-term foreign debt, according to the statement.

In terms of currency structure, debt in US dollars accounted for 78.27 percent of the country's outstanding foreign debt as of the end of June, up 7.86 percentage points from the end of last year. Euro-denominated foreign debt accounted for 4.09 percent, down 0.32 percentage points from the end of last year.