China’s foreign-exchange reserves dropped for the first time in more than a decade, Bloomberg reports, as foreign investment moderated, the trade surplus narrowed and Europe’s crisis spurred investors to sell emerging-market assets. The holdings, the world’s biggest, fell to $3.18tn at the end of December from $3.2tn at the end of September, data from the People’s Bank of China showed. The quarterly drop was the first since the second quarter of 1998, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Meanwhile the WSJ says China may eventually invest more of its $3.2tn foreign-exchange reserves in stocks, enterprises and other assets as it looks for ways to boost returns on its reserves, according to an interview with Jiang Jianqing, chairman of China’s largest state-owned bank.

This entry was posted by Kate Mackenzie on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 4:51 and is featured in The 6am Cut London (13 Jan 2012), The Lunch Wrap (13 Jan 2012) . Tagged with foreign exchange reserves, renminbi, RMB, RMB internationalisation. Edit this entry.