China maintained a basic equilibrium in the balance of payments in 2024, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported on Friday.
According to the latest data, China's current account surplus reached 423.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2024 and the current account surplus to gross domestic product ratio stood at 2.2 percent last year, staying within a reasonable range.
The administration reported China's relatively high surplus of trade in goods, optimized structure of export commodities and more diversified trading partners.
It noted that the imports and exports of China's service trade performed robustly, with the trade deficit remaining generally stable. Cross-border travel expenditures returned to normal levels, while cross-border travel income and trade revenue from emerging productive service grew rapidly.
During the same period, the non-reserve financial account registered a deficit, primarily due to enterprises and other entities leveraging domestic and international markets as well as global resources to optimize their investment layouts, said SAFE, adding that outward direct investment and outward portfolio investment remained active.
Foreign direct investment inflows amounted to 90.9 billion U.S. dollars, and the net inflows of foreign holdings of domestic bonds reached 46.8 billion U.S. dollars. By the end of 2024, China's external assets exceeded 10 trillion U.S. dollars, while its external liabilities approached 7 trillion U.S. dollars, up 6.1 percent and 2.2 percent respectively, compared to the end of 2023.
An official from the administration stated that in 2025, the external environment will become more complex and severe, due to the global economy's insufficient growth momentum, intensified unilateralism and protectionism, and tense geopolitical situations.
The official stressed that China is accelerating the formation of a new development pattern, implementing more proactive and effective macro policies, comprehensively expanding domestic demand, and promoting a sustained and favorable economic recovery, to offer a solid foundation for the stable operation of the balance of payments.
China achieves stable balance in int'l payments for 2024
A 10-billion-yuan fund has been established at the just-concluded 2025 Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum) Annual Conference in Beijing to support China's emerging sectors of strategic importance.
The special fund, worth nearly 1.38 billion U.S. dollars, was announced at the Core Technology Investment and Development Forum on Sunday, aiming to provide financial support for a number of high-quality tech enterprises and help foster an innovation ecology conducive to the development of new quality productive forces.
The fund is established by multiple companies including the Zhongguancun Development Group, New China Life Insurance Company, and the Financial Asset Investment Company, a subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
At the forum, projects of nine universities and institutes, including Tsinghua University and Peking University, received investment from the fund, with a total value of nearly 250 million yuan (about 34.45 million U.S. dollars) signed.
"We have built a full-life cycle industrial fund system around different growth stages of enterprises, from Angel investment, venture capital, to mergers and acquisitions, including mother fund, direct investment fund, second-hand share transfer fund, etc. For high-quality core technology projects, we have taken the lead in investing, making heavy and long-term investments. So far, we have cumulatively invested in more than 4,000 science and technology projects, among which over 1,000 national-level high-tech enterprises, nearly 800 enterprises that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products, 96 unicorn companies, and 161 listed companies have emerged," said Pan Jinfeng, chairman of Zhongguancun Development Group.
The 2025 Annual Conference of ZGC Forum ran from March 27 to 31 in the Chinese capital under the theme of "New Quality Productive Forces and Global Technology Cooperation," comprising five major sections, including meetings and technology trading.
The event provided new ideas and insights for global innovative development in large AI models, embodied intelligence, quantum technology, biomedicine, 6G, brain-computer interfaces, and other frontier areas in 128 events, highlighting the transformation of Zhongguancun, China's "Silicon Valley," into a global innovation hub, marked by groundbreaking technologies and the convergence of global expertise.
New fund created at 2025 ZGC Forum to support strategic emerging industries
