The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has recently released the data on external debt as at the end of March 2019. The SAFE spokesperson and Chief Economist Wang Chunying answered media questions on China’s recent external debt situations.

Q: Could you brief us on China's external debt for the first quarter of 2019?

A: The scale of China’s external debt is basically stable. As at the end of March, the full-scale outstanding external debt (including domestic and foreign currencies) hit USD 1.9717 trillion, representing an increase of USD 6.5 billion from the end of 2018, up by 0.3%.

Q: What would you say about the external debt situation in China?

A: The growth of China's external debt has slowed down. Firstly, the currency structure of external debt has continued to improve. The increase of external debt in the first quarter of 2019 was mainly driven by external debt in domestic currency, which increased by 0.8 percentage point from the end of 2018. Secondly, the demand of foreign investors for purchasing domestic RMB bonds has remained stable with a slight increase. In the first quarter of 2019, the balance of debt securities increased by 4.3% from the end of 2018, accounting for 22.6% of the full-scale outstanding external debt.

With the increasing uncertainties and destabilizing factors in the external environment, China's economic operation has maintained the development trend of overall stability and steady progress, showing adequate resilience.  In the future, the SAFE will further refine the two-pronged "macro-prudential and micro-regulation" management framework for cross-border capital flow, and adhere to the practice of focusing on both serving the real economy and preventing risk from cross-border capital flow, so as to promote healthy economic development.