China cut its holdings of United States government debt in April for the third straight month, which may reflect a continuing move from US assets, according to an analyst.
China, the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries, held $1.26 trillion in US debt as of April, down $8.9 billion from the previous month and below the $1.27 trillion mark for the first time since August 2013, the US Treasury Department said Monday in a monthly report. China’s holdings hit a high of $1.317 triillion in November.
Kent Troutman, a research analyst at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), said the decreases each month could be due to benign shifts in the portfolio.
"April is the first month where there is a larger decrease, but it is still small. What is worth noting, however, is that, even if China’s holdings of US Treasuries are flat, its share of overall foreign exchange reserves is declining," Troutman wrote Monday in an email to China Daily.
"What we’ve seen in the past four months, if we accept that the data accurately reflects China’s true holdings of US assets, is the continuation of a shift that began in 2010 of diversifying their portfolio away from US assets," he said.
Japan remained the second-largest US creditor in April, increasing its debt securities by $9.5 billion to $1.21 trillion.
Foreign demand for US assets strengthened as net foreign purchases of long-term securities totaled $24.2 billion in April, compared to purchases of $4 billion in March, the data showed.
More >>>
No comments:
Post a Comment