A central bank report shows that China's renminbi savings deposits dropped in October. This is the first decline since June 2001.

 

According to the report released yesterday, the RMB savings deposits dropped 7.6 billion yuan (US$966.4 million) from the end of September to 15.8 trillion yuan (US$2,009 billion) but is still 15.5 percent more than at the same time last year.

 

Year-on-year decrease for the current deposits were down 2.16 billion yuan (US$274.7 million) at the end of October and for the fixed deposits, the year-on-year increase was 60.79 billion yuan (US$7,730 million) less than 2005.  

 

The central bank explained that active stock trading had drained some of the savings deposits. Statistics show that the deposits by customers of securities companies rose 182.9 percent over September to 604.2 billion yuan (US$76.8 billion) by the end of October.

 

Despite a climate of high savings, it seems that the government calls for Chinese people to spend more in an effort to curb runaway investment.

 

The report also shows that all deposits in RMB rose 17 percent year-on-year to 32.93 trillion yuan (US$4.2 trillion) at the end of October.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2006)