China's foreign currency reserves reached $3.029 trillion at the end of September, $25.9 billion less than in August, a decline of 0.85 percent, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported on Friday.
Wang Chunying, deputy administrator of the SAFE, said at a press conference that the slight decline mainly reflected changes in exchange rates and major asset values, an article published on Friday via the SAFE official website showed.
In September, China's cross-border cash flows remained stable, as well as domestic demand for foreign currencies.
Wang noted that China's economy will keep recovering, which is expected to stabilize the country's forex reserves, despite external uncertainties.
Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday that the decline was a normal adjustment.
In the global financial market, influenced by some major economies' monetary and fiscal policies, the US Dollar Index has kept rising.
The yuan's exchange rate against the US dollar and the global political environment will affect China's foreign exchange reserves, said Wang Peng. The offshore yuan exchange rate reached 7.267 at one point in September, but it has since rebounded to around 7.
Following adjustments by China's central bank and the yuan's rebound against the US dollar, the decrease of forex reserves in September fell to $25.9 billion from the August level of nearly $50 billion, Wang Peng noted. The current forex reserves are an upbeat sign for Chinese foreign trade enterprises and the nation's economic recovery.
The SAFE stated in an article published via its official WeChat account on Tuesday that China's forex reserves saw significant growth in resilience in the past decade. In 2021, the transaction volume of China's forex market hit $36.9 trillion, a three-fold gain from the level in 2012, making China the world's eighth-largest forex market with over 40 available currencies.
A recent report from IMF showed that amid current global economic and geopolitical uncertainties, the Chinese yuan accounted for 2.88 percent of global foreign currency reserves in the second quarter of 2022, ranking fifth worldwide and maintaining its highest global reading since data were first released in 2016.