US$5b Surplus in First Half of 2001, International Balance Sheet First Time PublishedAccording to the latest semi-annual statement of the international balance published by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Tuesday, China has seen double balance surplus in the current items of international payment and capital and finance in the first half of this year. The general situation in the international payment remains favorable.It is the first time for China to publish the semi-annual balance sheet of international payment. This is done mainly to cater to the demand for statistic transparency when China enters into the WTO and step up the frequency of statistics publication on the basis of the improvement of statistics quality. In the first half of 2001, the surplus of China's current items of international payment amounted to US$5.099 billion. Calculated on the basis of statistics items of international payment, the value of exports amounted to US$124.518 billion, the value of imports hit US$111.075 billion, and, the surplus reached US$13.443 billion; service items made a revenue of US$15.553 billion, the expenditure reached US$18.764 billion, and the deficit hit US$3.211 billion; income items reported a revenue of US$4.938 billion, the expenditure amounted to US$13.547 billion with a deficit of US$8.609 billion; the revenue of current diverting items was US$3.749 billion, the expenditure hit US$274 million, showing a surplus of US$3.476 billion. The surplus of capital and financial items was US$18.975 billion in the first half of 2001 of which capital items were reported US$21 million in deficit, while for financial items a surplus of US$18.996 billion. In financial items, direct-investment items realized a surplus of US$18.314 billion while stock-investment items saw a deficit of US$10.004 billion. Other investing items reported a surplus of US$10.682 billion. Promoted by the double surplus of current items of payment and capital and financial items, China's international reserve capital is on the rise and the exchange rate of RMB remains steady and stable. In the first half of the year, the country's international reserve capital increased by US$15.572 billion over that of the end of last year in which, foreign exchange reserve up by US$15.264 billion. By the end of last June, China's foreign exchange reserve hit US$180.838 billion. The country's external liquidity has been further enhanced. By PD Online Staff Du Minghua |
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