China's external debt hits $771b

BEIJING - China's outstanding external debt amounted to $770.83 billion as of the end of September, the country's foreign exchange regulator said Thursday.

The amount fell from the $785.17 billion recorded at the end of June and does not include the outstanding external debts of the Hong Kong special administrative region, the Macao SAR and Taiwan, according to a statement on the website of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Outstanding long- and medium-term foreign debt stood at $198.02 billion by the end of September, while the figure for short-term foreign debt was $572.82 billion, the statement said.

Of the total outstanding external debt, registered external debt reached $471.33 billion, while the balance of trade credit between enterprises amounted to $299.5 billion.

In terms of currency structure, debt in US dollars accounted for 77.45 percent of the outstanding registered external debt, down 0.32 percentage points from the end of June.

Euro-denominated foreign debt accounted for 7.3 percent, down 0.21 percentage points from the end of June, while debt in Japanese yen took up 7.27 percent, compared with 6.99 percent in June, according to the statement.

China accrued medium- and long-term external debt amounting to $30.99 billion in the first nine months, and it repaid $23.43 billion in principal and $1.75 billion in interest during the period.