Friday, April 2, 2004
China's foreign debt rises 13% in 2003
Reuters Beijing, April 1
China's foreign debt stood at $193.6 billion at the end of 2003, up 13 per cent from a year earlier, as the booming economy sucked in more overseas capital, official figures showed on Thursday.
Short-term debt shot up nearly $21.3 billion, or about 37 per cent, to just over $77 billion at the end of 2003, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said.
Medium and long-term foreign debt was nearly $116.6 billion, up just $1 billion from the end of 2002, the administration said on its Web site at www.safe.gov.cn.
"Foreign debt and new borrowing saw fairly large increases, mainly due to fast economic growth and continued improvement of of conditions for foreign capital," it said.
Different interest rates for the yuan and foreign currencies also contributed to the rise in foreign debt, it said without elaborating. China's benchmark one-year yuan lending rate is 5.31 per cent.
China's huge foreign exchange reserves -- second in the world only to Japan at $415.7 billion at the end of January -- meant it had a strong repayment ability.
The country's foreign debt burden was 13.7 per cent of gross domestic product, within international safety levels, it said without elaborating.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004.