China's foreign debt had stood at 169.11 billion US dollars by the end of June this year, a drop of 1 billion dollars, or 0.6 percent, from that at the end of last year, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said Saturday.
Official statistics, which do not include Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, show that medium- and long-term debt accounted for 69.4 percent of the total to stand at 117.31 billion dollars, down by 2.22 billion dollars from the end of last year.
The amount of short-term foreign debt was 51.8 billion dollars, up by 1.22 billion dollars, and accounted for 30.6 percent of the total.
In the first six months of this year, China acquired new foreign debt of 24.76 billion dollars, and repaid principals of 32.38 billion dollars.
In China's registered foreign debt of 144.41 billion dollars, the amount of sovereignty debt accounted for 49.68 billion dollars, 34.4 percent of the total; that owed by domestic financial institutions was 33.56 billion dollars, 23.2 percent of the total; that owed by foreign-invested enterprises was 34.68 billion dollars, 24 percent of the total; that owed by domestic enterprises was 10.37 billion dollars, 7.2 percent of the total; that owed by foreign-invested financial institutions was 15.49 billion dollars, 10.7 percent of the total; and that owed by other institutions was 0.63 billion dollars, 0.5 percent of the total.
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2002)
