Forex reserves grow the least in 2012

China's foreign exchange reserves grew the least in the past decade to US$3.31 trillion, the world's biggest, last year, the central bank said Thursday.

The holdings rose US$129 billion from a year earlier amid slowing exports and speculative capital outflows, the People's Bank of China said.

"China posted only a small gain in foreign exchange reserves, which stayed below the annual trade surplus," Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist for Asia except Japan at Credit Agricole, said in a note yesterday. "This suggests capital outflows or the PBOC transferred the reserves to another entity. Most likely, either foreign investors were not confident in China's recovery or domestic investors were finding ways to diversify abroad."