China's forex reserves decline by US$99.5b in January to US$3.23t

Beijing

CHINA'S foreign-exchange reserves shrank to the smallest since 2012, indicating that the central bank sold US dollars as the yuan's drop to a five-year low exacerbated depreciation pressures.

The world's largest currency hoard declined by US$99.5 billion in January to US$3.23 trillion, according to a People's Bank of China (PBOC) statement released on Sunday. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a figure of US$3.21 trillion. The stockpile fell by more than half a trillion US dollars in 2015, the first-ever annual drop.