Economy

China forex reserves hit $3 trillion

(Xinhua/Agencies)
Updated: 2011-04-14 17:22

China's foreign reserves, by far the world's biggest, soared 24.4 percent over a year ago to $3.04 trillion at the end of March, the central bank reported Thursday.

China's reserves are nearly triple those of second-place Japan, which reported $1.1 trillion as of March 31.

Related readings:  China should diversify forex reserves

The makeup of China's reserves is secret but Beijing is believed to keep a big part in US Treasury securities and other US government debt.

The government has diversified its holdings in recent years, trying to earn a better return by putting some of its reserves into agencies that invest in stocks and other foreign assets.

Yuan loans hit 2.24 trillion yuan

New yuan-denominated loans stood at 2.24 trillion yuan ($342.83 billion) in the first quarter of 2011, said the central bank in a statement on its website.

The figure was 352.4 billion yuan less than that in the same period of last year.

By the end of March, the balance of outstanding yuan-denominated loans stood at 49.47 trillion yuan, up 17.9 percent from a year earlier. The rise was 0.2 percentage points higher than that in February and 2 percentage points lower than that at the end of 2010.

China's broad money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 16.6 percent year on year to 75.81 trillion yuan in the first quarter of 2011. The rise was 0.9 percentage points higher than that in February and 3.1 percentage points lower than that at the end of last year.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), cash in circulation plus current corporate deposits, climbed 15 percent from a year earlier to 26.63 trillion yuan. The increase was 6.2 percentage points lower than that at the end of 2010.

New yuan-denominated deposits stood at 3.98 trillion yuan in the first three months of this year. The figure was 54.5 billion yuan more than that in the same period of last year.

The balance of outstanding yuan-denominated deposits rose 19 percent year on year to 75.28 trillion yuan by the end of March. The rise was 1.4 percentage points higher than that in February and 1.2 percentage points lower than that at the end of last year.

New yuan-denominated lending reached 7.95 trillion yuan last year, exceeding government's 7.5-trillion-yuan target ceiling.

PBOC sets social financing at 14 trillion yuan

China aims to set this year's social financing amount at around 14 trillion yuan ($2.14 trillion), the central bank said Thursday at a news briefing.

The figure was smaller than the 14.27 trillion yuan in 2010, the central bank said in a statement on its website. The social financing in the first quarter this year stood at 4.19 trillion yuan.

It is the first time China has published the indicator, which gauges the overall pace of fund raising to help the central bank judge how much liquidity is in the financial system. The concept was first introduced by the central bank in December last year.

It includes all the funds raised by entities in China's real economy during a certain period of time, such as loans of local and foreign currencies, entrusted loans, trust loans, bank acceptance bills, corporate bonds, equity financing, foreign direct investment and foreign debt.

Analysts see the indicator as a better one than new bank lending to assess liquidity in the economy.

Chinese regulators are changing their focus to a broader concept because it is too narrow to look at bank lending alone as the economy evolves, Sheng Songcheng, head of the statistics department at the central bank, said in February.

The new bank lending volume can no longer fully reflect the relationship between finance and the economy and the actual financing volume of the real economy, he said.

In the future, China would better regulate total social financing by improving the financial statistical system and enhancing the cooperation between the central bank and other financial supervisors, Sheng said.