China's Foreign-Exchange Reserves Decline to $3.23 Trillion
- January's decline of $99.5 billion less than estimated
- Increasing expectation PBOC will be forced to capitulate: IHS
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China’s foreign-exchange reserves shrank to the smallest since 2012, indicating that the central bank sold dollars as the yuan’s retreat to a five-year low exacerbated depreciation pressure.
The world’s largest currency hoard decreased by $99.5 billion in January to $3.23 trillion, according to a People’s Bank of China statement released on Sunday. The contraction was less than a Bloomberg survey’s median estimate of a $120 billion drop. The stockpile slumped by more than half a trillion dollars in 2015, the first-ever annual decline.