According to the latest statistics released by State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the balance of China's foreign debts were equivalent to 228.596 billion dollars by the end of 2004 (the foreign debts of Hong Kong and Macao SARs and Taiwan region excluded), up 34.962 billion dollars from that at the end of last year or a year-on-year increase of 18.06 percent.

The statistics shows that among the total 228.596 billion US dollars foreign debts, the balance of mid-term and long-term foreign debts stood at 124.287 billion US dollars, yielding 54.37 percent of the total debts or up 7.697 billion US dollars from that at the end of last year; the balance of short-term foreign debts maintained 104.309 billion US dollars, accounting for 45.63 percent of the total debts.

By People's Daily Online