China's external debt edges up in 2014

BEIJING - China's outstanding external debt totaled $895.5 billion at the end of 2014, up 2.5 percent from one year earlier, according to data released on Tuesday by the country's forex regulator.

Of the total debt, outstanding short-term external debt, due within one year, amounted to $621.1 billion, up 0.4 percent from a year earlier, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement on its website.

Medium- and long-term outstanding external debt reached 274.4 billion dollars, a year-on-year increase of 7.5 percent.

The SAFE said China's external debt risk is within control as indices of debt security, including the ratio of debt to GDP, debt ratio and debt servicing ratio, all stayed below international alert levels.

The sum does not include the outstanding external debt of Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions or that of Taiwan.

In terms of currency structure, debt denominated in US dollars accounted for 80 percent of the outstanding external debt, while that in euros and Japanese yen took up 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively, the SAFE said.