China's outstanding foreign debt settled at USD 1.53 trillion end of September, data from the country's forex regulator showed today.
Most of the debt owed to foreign creditors resulted from short-term borrowing, as outstanding external debt with a term of one year or less accounted for 67 per cent of the total, while long- and medium-term outstanding external debt accounted for 33 per cent, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement.
The volume was done USD 150.3 billion from the data in June.
The SAFE attributed the retreat to domestic market entities paying off debts to avert currency risks amid rising expectations for the US interest rate hike in the third quarter, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The amount does not include the outstanding external debt of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions or that of Taiwan.
