China's State Council Information Office holds a press conference on foreign exchange settlement and sales in the first half of 2023. /CFP
China's banks saw a net foreign exchange settlement surplus of $1.8 billion in the first half of 2023, the country's forex regulator said on Friday.
Forex purchases by banks totaled $1.133 trillion in the first six months, while sales reached $1.131 trillion, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed.
The supply and demand of China's forex market remained generally balanced, said Wang Chunying, the deputy head and spokesperson of SAFE.
Wang added China maintained a net inflow and its cross-border capital flows remained active.
From January to June 2023, total cross-border receipts and payments by non-banking sectors amounted to $3.026 trillion and $2.979 trillion, respectively.
Meanwhile, China's forex reserves stood at $3.193 trillion at the end of June, an increase of $65.3 billion from end-2022.
Wang said the country's forex reserves have remained "basically stable," and would remain so due to favorable factors both internally and externally.
These factors include the continued recovery of the Chinese economy as well as the expectation that the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy tightening is coming to an end, she said.
(Cover via CFP)