BEIJING - China is closely monitoring the slide in the Russian rouble, the foreign exchange regulator said on Thursday, as the currency of one of its major energy importers struggles to avoid a free-fall.
Wang Yungui, head of policy and regulations for the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), told a news conference that China was paying attention considering the close economic relationship between the two.
"We haven't seen a significant impact on our cross-border capital flows," he said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, speaking at a later news conference, added that he believed Russia would overcome its problems.
"Russia has rich resources, quite a good industrial base. We believe that Russia has the ability to overcome its temporary difficulties," Qin said.
China's exports to Russia rose an on-year 10.5 percent and imports went up 2.9 percent in the first three quarters of the year, with total trade valued at $70.78 billion.
Wang added that China was not overly concerned about signs of forex outflows in recent months.
"Under the circumstance, signs of capital outflows in certain months are normal. Overall, we still see net capital inflows," Wang said, adding that many companies have opted to park export income overseas instead of selling off hard currency to banks, given the strong two-way fluctuations in the yuan spot market CNY=CFXS.
Xiao Lihong, another SAFE official, said the government was stepping up investigations into fake trade deals, following widespread suspicions that strong export figures in September and October were inflated by manipulated invoices designed to smuggle yuan into China in order to speculate on the stock markets.
However, she said recent unusual spikes in exports of jewelry and precious metals were not closely linked to speculative capital flows, addressing media reports.China FX regulator says closely monitoring Russian rouble slide