China's foreign debt size still safe and manageable

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 05, 2003

China's foreign debt size still safe and manageable

China's foreign exchange watchdog, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), Tuesday said the nation's short-term foreign debts are manageable despite rapid increases. China's short-term foreign debts --borrowings with a maturity of one year or less -- stood at US$64.2 billion at the end of June, representing an increase of US$11.2 billion over last year.

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Risks incurred by the increase of China's short-term foreign debts can be controlled, a spokesman for the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said Tuesday.

He noted that the hike of short-term foreign debts, which should be serviced within one year, "should not affect the safety of the country's debt size."

By the end of June this year China's outstanding foreign debts stood at 182.57 billion US dollars (excluding those in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions), 14.03 billion dollars more than the end of 2002.

Short-term debts made up 35.2 percent, beyond the international "danger line" of 25 percent and aroused concerns from departments concerned.

According to the SAFE spokesman, however, China had a fairly strong ability to service the debts, citing that the ratio of the country's foreign exchange reserves to the outstanding foreign debts was 190 percent, far above the international requirement of 20 percent.

And the ratio of forex reserves to short-term debts reached 540 percent, compared with the international requirement of 100 percent.

The country had an additional 150 billion dollars of foreign currency deposits, which could help pay the debts, he said.

A large portion of the added short-term foreign debts came from various kinds of trade credit, which was based on real commodity transactions and could not bring about big risks, the spokesman said.

The debts of foreign-funded financial institutions in China, which were also included in the country's China's foreign debt size, also rose this year, he said, adding that this part of the debt would also not exert a negative impact on the safety of China's foreign debt situation.

SAFE would concentrate on foreign debt data collection and analysis and research measures that should be taken to tackle possible problems, he said.

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