China's Reserves Build Still Higher
BEIJING -- China continued its recent record-breaking run of increasing official foreign-exchange reserves, adding another $130.59 billion to its stash in just three months.</br></br>But the unusual multibillion-dollar transactions thought to have fueled the huge increases in those holdings this year show signs of tapering off.</br></br>Separately, China's statistics bureau said the country's economy in 2006 grew at an even faster pace than previously estimated, with gross domestic product expanding 11.1%, up from the initially calculated 10.7%.</br></br>The revision led some economists to predict that China could surpass Germany sooner than expected to become the world's third-largest national economy. The U.S. and Japan are the first- and second-largest national economies.</br></br>China's latest additions to its foreign-reserve holdings -- the world's largest -- brought their total to $1.33 trillion at the end of June, up from $1.2 trillion at the end of March, according to data published yesterday by the country's central bank. The figures highlight the enormous sums of money flowing into China -- and the difficulty in tracing them.