China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced on Saturday that outstanding external debt, excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, stood at 345.7 billion U.S. dollars as of the end of September, up 7.03 percent, or 22.7 billion dollars, compared with the end of 2006.

 

During the period, outstanding medium- and long-term external debt rose 6.23 percent to 148 billion U.S. dollars, while short-term external debt, which accounted for 57 percent of the total, was 197.7 billion dollars, up 7.64 percent.

 

The statistics showed that China had incurred medium- and long-term foreign debt of 25.47 billion U.S. dollars from January to September, up 55.6 percent, or 7.65 billion U.S. dollars, over the same period last year.

 

During that time, it paid 14.76 billion U.S. dollars of principal and 2.67 billion U.S. dollars of interest on its debt, up 18.33 percent and 44.19 percent from the corresponding period last year, respectively.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 30, 2007)