China's foreign exchange reserves have topped the US$900 billion mark, keeping them the world's largest ahead of Japan's, the China Securities Journal reported on Wednesday.

China's reserves -- which overtook Japan's in February -- had reached US$875.1 billion by the end of March, with an increase of US$56.2 billion in the first quarter of the year alone.

An official source was quoted as saying that the surge forex reserves can be attributed to steady growth in trade surplus and direct foreign investment.

China has recorded successive trade surpluses for 25 months. In the first five months of this year, the surplus amounted to US$46.8 billion, up 41 percent from the same period last year.

Last year's total surplus of US$101.9 billion has led experts to predict that it will exceed US$100 billion again this year.

Japan reported last week that its foreign exchange reserves were US$860.2 billion as at the end of April.

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2006)