China remains largest holder of U.S. Treasuries

After decreasing for six consecutive months, China's holdings of U.S. Treasuries slightly rebounded to 1.123 trillion U.S. dollars in December, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

China, which is still the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, held 1.121 trillion dollars of U.S. Treasuries in November, down by 17.5 billion dollars from the previous month.

U.S. dollars [File photo: IC]

In the meantime, Japan's holdings of U.S. Treasuries increased to 1.042 trillion dollars in December, up from the 1.036-trillion-dollar level in November.

Combined, China and Japan hold more than a third of the total foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries.

When aggregating net foreign acquisitions of long-term securities, short-term U.S. securities and banking flows, the result was a 33.1-billion-dollar net foreign outflow of U.S. securities in December, the data showed.