BEIJING: China’s foreign exchange reserves rose month on month for the first time since October and the recovery signals a stabilizing exchange rate over the short term, a brokerage said yesterday.
The reserves rose US$10.2 billion to US$3.21 trillion in March, data from the People’s Bank of China showed.
China suffered a drop in reserves totaling US$313 billion since October, with a record US$108.3 monthly fall in December after the United States hiked interest rates for the first time in nine years, squeezing capital from emerging markets.
The increase in March beat a Reuters poll forecast of a drop to US$3.18 trillion but still the level of reserves was well below their peak of US$3.99 trillion in June 2014.
The recovery signaled depreciation pressure for the yuan has ebbed in the near term, Minsheng Securities Co said in a note.
But analysts warned of renewed depreciation pressure in the second half of this year as the domestic economic outlook remained murky and the US may still raise interest rates.
The central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said last month that recent data showed capital outflows eased significantly and short-term speculative money leaving China was not worrisome.
In February, the central bank reported its net foreign exchange sales fell sharply to 228 billion yuan (US$35.2 billion), down from 644.5 billion yuan in January.
