SHANGHAI- China’s foreign exchange reserves dropped nearly $46 billion in October, the central bank said, their second-largest decline this year as capital outflows eat into the world’s largest stockpile. The country’s hard currency reserves fell to $3.12 trillion last month, data from the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) showed, their fourth consecutive decline. “The yuan was sprinting all the way to approach 6.8 in October, which may have prompted the PBOC to sell some reserves to stabilise the market,” Gao Qi, a Singapore-based foreign-exchange strategist at Scotiabank, told Bloomberg. After the reserve figures were released late Monday Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a research note the decline “should not be as alarming as might first appear”. “Valuation effects due to last month’s strengthening of the US dollar and fall in global bond prices will have played a large part,” he added.

Source: Manila Times November 08, 2016 16:12 UTC