BEIJING (AFP) — China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, fell by about 30 billion dollars in January, partially due to a drop in the value of non-dollar assets, Chinese media reported Wednesday.
The report in the China Business News, which cited an unnamed source, did not specify the size of China's foreign exchange reserves at the end of January.
China's foreign exchange reserves stood at 1.95 trillion dollars at the end of last year. The central bank is scheduled to release quarterly figures of reserves in mid-April.
China's foreign exchange reserves fell 25.9 billion dollars in October, the first drop since December 2003, according to earlier reports.
China is believed to have invested the bulk of its reserves in assets denominated in US dollar-denominated assets, such as safe but low-yielding US Treasury bonds, but has been working to diversify to improve returns.
China may have lost more than 80 billion dollars of its foreign exchange reserves after buying into equities just before world markets collapsed last year, the Financial Times said Monday.
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