China's outstanding amount of foreign exchange deposits reached US$128.26 billion at the end of 2000, up 24.3 percent over the previous year, according to statistics released Friday by the People's Bank of China, the central bank.
In 2000, depositors put US$25.06 billion of foreign exchange in banks across the country, which was US$10.17 billion more than the previous year.
The central bank statistics show that corporate foreign exchange deposits accounted for US$45.98 billion of the total, up 15.5 percent year on year, and individual foreign exchange savings made up US$72.95 billion, up 31.8 percent.
By December 2000, the outstanding amount of foreign exchange loans in the country was US$61.15 billion, a decrease of US$5.56 billion from the beginning of the year calculated on the comparable basis.
(Xinhua 01/20/2001)
