A central bank report showed that China's Renminbi saving deposits reached 15.97 trillion yuan (US$2.04 trillion) at the end of November, up 15.3 percent year-on-year .

The increase rate was 0.2 percentage points lower than that in October, said the report released Thursday by the People's Bank of China.

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New saving deposits in November were 168.3 billion yuan, only 600 million yuan more than that in November last year.

In October this year, saving deposits dropped 7.6 billion yuan from the September figure, the first decline since June 2001. The central bank explained that active stock trading had drained some of the saving deposits.

China's benchmark Composite Stock Index on the Shanghai Stock Exchange closed at 2,249.11 points on Thursday, hitting a record high.

China has been experiencing a high saving rate and the government has urged people to spend more and save less in order to curb soaring investment.

The report also showed that the all saving deposits of residents in RMB and foreign currencies reached 16.76 trillion yuan at the end of November, up 14.4 percent year-on-year.

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