China Sees Stable Increase in 2020 Foreign Exchange Reserves

​The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), the Chinese government's foreign exchange and international trade agency, has reported a stable increase of the country's foreign exchange reserves for December and the full year 2020.

According to the SAFE, China's foreign exchange reserves reached above $3.2165 trillion by the end of 2020. When measuring this against $3.1079 trillion of the previous year, foreign exchange reserves increased 3.5 percent ($0.1086 trillion). Further, the December amount was up by 1.2 percent compared with $3.1785 trillion at the end of November 2020.

Driven by combined effects of currency translation and changes in asset prices, the December figure was the highest level since May in 2016.

For the whole year, there were 4 months logged month-on-month decline and 8 months logged month-on-month growth, indicating that the steady functioning of the country's forex market had a solid foundation.

SAFE spokesperson Wang Chunying said the market was "basically stable" with orderly and rational transactions.

Wang also expected China's foreign exchange market to run in a steady and balanced manner and the scale of forex reserve to remain generally stable, despite uncertainties in the international financial market amid virus-induced risks and complicated global economic outlook.