China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced on
Saturday that outstanding external debt, excluding Hong Kong, Macau
and Taiwan, stood at 345.7 billion U.S. dollars as of the end of
September, up 7.03 percent, or 22.7 billion dollars, compared with
the end of 2006.
During the period, outstanding medium- and long-term external
debt rose 6.23 percent to 148 billion U.S. dollars, while
short-term external debt, which accounted for 57 percent of the
total, was 197.7 billion dollars, up 7.64 percent.
The statistics showed that China had incurred medium- and
long-term foreign debt of 25.47 billion U.S. dollars from January
to September, up 55.6 percent, or 7.65 billion U.S. dollars, over
the same period last year.
During that time, it paid 14.76 billion U.S. dollars of
principal and 2.67 billion U.S. dollars of interest on its debt, up
18.33 percent and 44.19 percent from the corresponding period last
year, respectively.
(Xinhua News Agency December 30, 2007)
