On April 22, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (hereinafter referred to as the "SAFE") released data on bank foreign exchange settlement and sales, as well as bank foreign exchange receipts and payments on behalf of clients for March 2025. According to data, in US dollars, in March 2025, banks settled 189.6 billion US dollars in foreign exchange and sold 1916 billion US dollars in foreign exchange. From January to March 2025, banks have cumulatively settled 529 billion US dollars in foreign exchange and sold 586.6 billion US dollars in foreign exchange. In March 2025, the bank's foreign-related income from customer service amounted to 692 billion US dollars, and external payments amounted to 642.8 billion US dollars. From January to March 2025, the cumulative foreign-related income of bank clients was 1887.1 billion US dollars, and the cumulative external payments were 1835.4 billion US dollars. Regarding the operation of China's foreign exchange market since the beginning of this year, Li Bin, Deputy Director and spokesperson of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, stated that there have been profound changes in the external environment, increased volatility in the international financial market, and increased risks and challenges. China is accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, solidly promoting high-quality development, implementing more proactive macro policies, effectively responding to external challenges, and maintaining a positive economic recovery. The overall operation of the foreign exchange market is stable. When it comes to the future trend of China's foreign exchange market, Li Bin said that although the external environment is unstable and uncertain factors are increasing, China is accelerating the implementation of more proactive macro policies, making efforts to promote the implementation and effectiveness of various policies, and has many economic advantages, strong resilience, and great potential, which will continue to support the stable operation of the foreign exchange market. Li Bin mentioned that firstly, China's economy has started well, which has effectively boosted market confidence. Since the beginning of this year, China has increased its macroeconomic policy regulation efforts, deployed and implemented more proactive fiscal policies and moderately loose monetary policies, formulated and implemented special action plans to boost consumption, and the economy has started steadily and continued to recover and improve. In the first quarter, China's economy grew by 5.4% year-on-year and 1.2% month on month. Domestic demand expanded, and the year-on-year growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods and fixed assets investment was 1.1 and 1.0 percentage points higher than that of 2024. In March, the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for China's manufacturing industry was 50.5%, which remained in a prosperous range for two consecutive months. In the future, China will timely introduce new incremental policies according to the needs of the situation, take expanding domestic demand as a long-term strategy, promote the integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation, and provide support for the stability of the RMB exchange rate and the stable operation of the foreign exchange market. Secondly, China continues to expand its opening-up to the outside world, actively stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, which helps to maintain a basic balance of international payments. In terms of foreign trade, in recent years, China's foreign trade enterprises have taken the initiative to explore diversified markets and steadily promoted regional economic and trade cooperation. In 2024, China's imports and exports to ASEAN and the countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" accounted for 15.9% and 50.3% respectively, 3.4 and 23.8 percentage points higher than in 2017. Chinese enterprises are rapidly responding to the diverse demands of the global market, accelerating the cultivation of new foreign trade models, promoting the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, continuously breaking through key core technologies, enhancing foreign trade competitiveness, and making the industrial and supply chains more stable. In terms of foreign investment, in February of this year, the country issued the "Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment in 2025" to provide a favorable business environment for foreign investment to develop and operate in China. At the same time, China is steadily expanding the opening up of its financial markets, broadening cross-border investment and financing channels, highlighting the diversified asset allocation function of the RMB, and the attractiveness of the domestic securities market to foreign investment is expected to continue to increase. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange continues to deepen the reform and opening up in the foreign exchange field, and will continue to introduce policies and measures to support the development of cross-border trade and facilitate cross-border investment and financing, helping to better stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment. Thirdly, the resilience of China's foreign exchange market has improved, enhancing its ability to withstand external shocks. In recent years, the market-oriented formation mechanism of the RMB exchange rate has been continuously improved, and the flexibility of the exchange rate has been enhanced. At the same time, enterprises actively use foreign exchange derivatives to manage exchange rate risks and make more use of cross-border RMB settlements to reduce currency mismatch risks. In the first quarter of 2025, the proportion of RMB cross-border income and expenditure under goods trade and the foreign exchange hedging ratio of enterprises have increased compared to the previous year, and the ability of enterprises to cope with exchange rate fluctuations has been enhanced. Market expectations and transactions are becoming more rational and orderly. Li Bin stated that in the next step, the foreign exchange management department will continue to strengthen the monitoring of the foreign exchange situation, maintain exchange rate flexibility, effectively play the macroeconomic and international balance of payments automatic stabilizer functions of exchange rate adjustment, and continuously enrich the macro prudential management toolbox for cross-border fund flows. We will resolutely correct the market's pro cyclical behavior, prevent the risk of exchange rate overshoot, guard against the risk of abnormal cross-border fund flows, and maintain national economic and financial security. (New Society)