China forex reserves fall to $3.107 trillion in February

VCG

China's foreign exchange reserves came in at 3.107 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of February, a month-on-month decrease of 8.8 billion U.S. dollars, official data showed Friday.

In terms of international financial markets, the U.S. dollar index and bond prices of major countries have increased due to the global spread of the novel coronavirus, said Wang Chunying, a spokesperson and chief economist for the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).

In February, the U.S. dollar index was close to the 100 mark, with a monthly increase of 0.8 percent. The onshore yuan against the U.S. dollar fell 0.9 percent month on month. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.163 at the end of the month, down 34 basis points in a single month, and German 10-year bond yield fell about 17 basis points.

China gold reserves stood at 62.64 million fine troy ounces at the end of February, remaining flat for five consecutive months, said the SAFE.

The value of China's gold reserves rose to 100.85 billion U.S. dollars at the end of February from 99.24 billion at the end of January.

Although the epidemic has a certain impact on China's economy, on the whole, the fundamentals of China's long-term economic improvement have not changed, and the impact of the epidemic is short-term and generally controllable, said Wang. China's foreign exchange market has the conditions to maintain stable operations, and the scale of foreign exchange reserves is expected to continue to maintain overall stability.

With the enhancement of counter-cyclical regulation and the implementation of various policies including stabilizing foreign trade and investment, the foreign exchange market can maintain its smooth operations and cross-border capital flows can remain essentially balanced, and therefore able to resist risks, said Wen Bin, chief researcher with China Minsheng Bank.