BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- China's commercial banks reported a net forex settlement surplus of 273 billion yuan (about 39.1 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter (Q1), the country's forex regulator said Friday.

Photo: VCG

Forex purchases by banks stood at 3.43 trillion yuan, while sales reached 3.16 trillion yuan, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed.

Despite the coronavirus-induced volatility of the international financial market, China's forex market maintained a generally stable operation in Q1 with the yuan's exchange rate and the cross-border capital flows keeping steady, said the SAFE spokesperson Wang Chunying.

Wang said China's forex market was witnessing a more "rational and mature" development trend, demonstrating that the market players are confident in the fundamentals of the Chinese economy. Enditem