(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-07-02 12:32

China will gradually sell its planned 1.55 trillion yuan ($203.6 billion) in special domestic bonds to finance its overseas investment agency, a senior central bank official was quoted on Monday as saying.

The country's stock market has been hit by the bond issue plan, approved by China's parliament on Friday, as investors feared such a move would suck funds from the market.

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" The plan will be carried out gradually according to its monetary policy," Yi Gang, assistant governor of the People's Bank of China, told the Shanghai Securities News. Yi reiterated the Finance Ministry's view that the bond issue would have only a neutral impact on the domestic economy, the newspaper said.

The Finance Ministry indicated on its Web site on Friday that it would issue the bonds directly to the central bank in exchange for part of the $1.2 trillion in foreign currency reserves under the central bank's control.

No specific timetable was given for the sale of the bonds, but the increase in this year's debt ceiling suggests they will all be issued this year.