China's cumulative foreign exchange reserve stood at 1.809 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of June, up 35.73 percent from June last year, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, announced on Monday.

The foreign exchange reserve increased 11.9 billion U.S. dollars in June, down 28.1 billion U.S. dollars from the same month last year.

In the first half, China's foreign exchange reserve increased by 280.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 14.3 billion U.S. dollars over the first half of 2007.

The broad measure of money supply, M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, reached 44.31 trillion yuan (6.49 trillion U.S. dollars) by June, up 17.37 percent, according the central bank's website report.

The increase was 0.63 percentage points higher than at the end of 2007 and a 0.7 percentage-point drop from the end of May, said the PBOC.

By the end of June, outstanding local-currency deposits had increased 18.85 percent to 43.9 trillion yuan and those in foreign currencies dropped 1.75 percent to 163.8 billion U.S. dollars.

Meanwhile, the growth rate of loans slowed during the first half. Outstanding local-currency loans increased 14.12 percent to 28.62 trillion yuan by June. The growth rate was 1.98 percentage points lower than at the end of 2007.

Outstanding loans in foreign currencies, however, grew 48.63 percent year on year to 275.3 billion U.S. dollars by June.

(Xinhua News Agency July 14, 2008)