China will take a variety of measures in 2006 to promote the balance of international payments, said sources with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) Thursday.

At the working conference on foreign exchange management held in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province, SAFE Director Hu Xiaolian said that achieving a balance of international payments is of great significance to the healthy development of the Chinese economy.

However, problems such as bigger foreign trade surplus and an imbalance of international payments still exist in China's rapidly growing economy, he said.

According to the conference, to promote the balance of international payments, the SAFE will improve the management of foreign exchange in current accounts and facilitate trade and investment in 2006.

The SAFE will make further progress in the foreign exchange market and improve the managed, floating exchange rate regime.

In this way, the SAFE will improve financial services for small deals of foreign exchange, encourage financial institutions to make innovations in commodities and services and enhance monitoring and management on market risks, said the conference.

In 2006, the SAFE will expand channels for capital to flow in and out and advance capital account convertibility step by step.

It will abolish quotas for foreign exchange overseas investment and provide more favorable policies to enterprises going abroad to make investments. It will expand channels for overseas financial investment step by step and improve the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) system.

The SAFE will make more efforts to standardize capital inflows to safeguard the economic and financial security of the country and improve the management of foreign exchange reserves, said the conference.

It will explore more effective ways of using capital reserves by improving money and capital structures and expanding investment fields for foreign exchange reserves.

The SAFE will enhance its supervision of foreign exchange fund inflows and outflows and crack down on illegal foreign exchange deals, said the conference.

(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2006)