China Forex Reserves Fall to $3.092 Trillion in September

(Bloomberg) -- China’s foreign-currency holdings dipped in September, as valuation effects from a stronger dollar weighed on the otherwise stable stockpile.

• Reserves fell to $3.092 trillion in the month from $3.107 trillion in August, the People’s Bank of China said Sunday

Key Insights

• The reading compares with a median estimate of $3.106 trillion in a Bloomberg survey
  • The supply and demand largely remained balanced in the foreign-exchange market in September, and factors such as the exchange rate and changes in asset pricing affected the size of China’s forex reserves, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement
• “In the bigger picture, roughly balanced inflows and outflows since 2017 mean there’s been little need for the central bank to buy or sell foreign currencies,” said David Qu, and economist at Bloomberg Economics in Hong Kong. “This is helping to keep the reserves relatively stable.”

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Jeffrey Black in Hong Kong at jblack25@bloomberg.net;Tongjian Dong in Shanghai at tdong28@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey Black at jblack25@bloomberg.net, Jiyeun Lee, Stanley James

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With assistance from Bloomberg