SHANGHAI - The time is ripe for China to reform its system for management of its swelling foreign exchange reserves, two government economists said in remarks published on Monday.

The reform should proceed slowly and could include a 200-400 billion yuan bond issue from the Ministry of Finance, mostly directed overseas, said Xia Bin and Chen Daofu, economists with the Development Research Centre, a think-tank under the cabinet.

China has accumulated $987.9 billion in foreign currency reserves, the world's largest stockpile, and the trade surplus in the first nine months of 2006 -- $109.9 billion -- has exceeded that for 2005, which was also a record year.