China's foreign exchange reserve reached 659.1 billion US dollars by the end of March this year, up 49.9 percent over the same period of 2004, the People's Bank of China said on Thursday.

In the January-March period this year, the foreign exchange reserve increased by 49.2 billion dollars, an increase of 12.6 billion dollars over the corresponding period of the previous year.

The country's foreign exchange reserve stood at 609.9 billion dollars at the end of 2004, ranking second in the world after Japan.

Currently, the exchange rate of US dollar against the Chinese currency RMB, or Yuan, is one dollar to 8.2765 yuan.