Chinese banks see net forex purchase in Sept.

[File photo: VCG]

Chinese banks saw net foreign exchange purchases of 300 million U.S. dollars in September, the first settlement surplus in more than two years as cross-border capital flows stabilized, official data showed Thursday.

Chinese lenders bought 156 billion U.S. dollars' worth of foreign currency last month and sold 155.7 billion dollars, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement.

The data broke the deficit sequence for over two years.

In the first three quarters, Chinese banks bought 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars' worth of foreign currency and sold 1.31 trillion dollars, resulting in a net sales of 112.9 billion dollars, the data showed.

The amount marked a 54-percent drop from the deficit seen in the same period last year, which showed that supply and demand in the forex market was "basically" balanced, the SAFE said.