External debt level under control, SAFE says

The nation's foreign exchange regulator said on Wednesday that the risk for China's external debt is within control.

By the end of March, the outstanding external debt had hit $883.9 billion, 2.3 times the figure at the end of 2008. Short-term foreign debt more than tripled to $690.3 billion, accounting for 78 percent of the total, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Although the proportion of short-term debt to total external debt surpassed the international alert level of 25 percent, China is still safe in terms of external debt as shown by other indexes that evaluate debt security, said Guan Tao, head of the SAFE's department of international payments.

Short-term external debt accounted for 17 percent of the outstanding foreign reserves by the end of March, while the international alert level is 100 percent. Other indexes of debt security, such as debt-to-GDP ratio, have also stayed below critical levels.

But Guan said certain companies should put greater importance on controlling their debt risks.

"Many domestic companies accumulated a large amount of debt in US dollars in recent years," he said.

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