Chinanews.com, October 22nd. On the 22nd, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on foreign exchange receipts and payments data for the first three quarters of 2021.
When reporting on China’s foreign exchange receipts and payments in the first three quarters of this year, Wang Chunying, deputy director and spokesperson of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said that in the first three quarters of this year, banks settled US$1,859.8 billion in foreign exchange and sold US$1.6798 billion in foreign exchange.
Banks’ foreign exchange settlement and sales and cross-border revenues and expenditures showed overall surpluses.
Wang Chunying said that in the first three quarters of this year, the new crown pneumonia epidemic continued to spread around the world, and the international environment was complex and severe.
China continues to consolidate and expand the results of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, the national economy continues to maintain a recovery trend, and the main macro indicators are within a reasonable range.
China’s foreign exchange market is operating steadily, the RMB exchange rate fluctuates in both directions and is generally stable, foreign exchange receipts and payments transactions are active, and cross-border capital flows are generally stable.
According to Wang Chunying, according to the bank's foreign exchange settlement and sales data, in the first three quarters, in terms of US dollars, banks settled US$1,859.8 billion, sold US$1.6798 billion, and had a surplus of US$180 billion.
In RMB terms, banks settled 12.0 trillion yuan in foreign exchange, sold 10.9 trillion yuan in foreign exchange, and had a surplus of 1,163.7 billion yuan in foreign exchange settlement and sales.
According to the data of foreign-related receipts and payments of banks on behalf of customers, in US dollars, the foreign-related income of banks on behalf of customers was 443.4 billion, foreign payments were US$4.1686 billion, and the surplus of foreign-related receipts and payments was 234.8 billion US dollars; in RMB, the foreign-related income of banks on behalf of customers was 28.5 trillion yuan. , Foreign payments were 27.0 trillion yuan, and foreign-related receipts and payments had a surplus of 1.5194 billion yuan.
In the first three quarters of this year, China’s foreign exchange receipts and payments have the following characteristics:
First, the banks' foreign exchange settlement and sales and cross-border income and expenditure generally showed a surplus.
In the first three quarters, the bank’s foreign exchange settlement and sales surplus was US$180 billion, and the bank’s foreign-related revenue and expenditure surplus was US$234.8 billion. The supporting role of the foreign exchange market continues to appear.
Second, the sales exchange rate has remained stable, and cross-border financing has gradually stabilized.
In the first three quarters, the sales exchange rate, which measures the willingness of foreign exchange purchases, is 63.8% of customers' foreign exchange purchases from banks and customers' foreign exchange expenditures, which is basically the same as the level of the same period in 2020.
From the perspective of foreign exchange financing, at the end of September this year, the balance of domestic foreign exchange loans of Chinese enterprises and other market entities increased by US$40.3 billion from the end of last year, mainly due to the relatively rapid increase in the first quarter, which has been relatively stable since April.
At the end of September, the balance of foreign currency financing for cross-border trade such as overseas payment and forward letter of credit was 142.9 billion U.S. dollars, basically returning to the level before the epidemic.
Third, the settlement exchange rate has risen slightly, and the balance of foreign exchange deposits has been basically stable recently.
In the first three quarters, the exchange rate used to measure the willingness to settle foreign exchange, that is, the ratio of the size of the customer's foreign exchange sales to the bank and the customer's foreign exchange income was 66.9%, which was a slight increase of 2 percentage points over the same period last year.
By the end of September this year, the balance of domestic foreign exchange deposits of enterprises and other market entities had increased by US$63.6 billion over the end of last year, of which US$65.8 billion had been increased in the first half of this year, and the balance has been basically stable since July.
Fourth, the scale of foreign exchange derivatives transactions has maintained growth, and companies have gradually strengthened their awareness of exchange rate risk management.
In the first three quarters of this year, companies used foreign exchange derivatives such as forwards and options to manage the scale of exchange rate risk. The year-on-year growth was relatively high, with a growth rate of 80%. This growth rate was 56 percentage points higher than the growth rate of bank foreign exchange settlement and sales in the same period. Promote the corporate hedging rate to increase by 7.9 percentage points year-on-year to 22.1%.
This data shows that companies' awareness of exchange rate risk aversion is increasing, and the concept of risk-neutral business is improving.
Fifth, the scale of foreign exchange reserves is basically stable.
As of the end of September this year, China’s foreign exchange reserves totaled US$320.6 billion, a slight decrease of 0.5% from the end of last year.
In the first three quarters, the main reason for the changes in the scale of foreign exchange reserves was mainly due to the combined effects of exchange rate conversion and asset price changes.