Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: Mar. 2, 2004




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Trading Activity in the Taipei Foreign Exchange Market in Jan. 2004

The trading activity in the Taipei foreign exchange market covers all foreign exchange transactions made by authorized foreign exchange banks and offshore banking units. After eliminating double counting arising from interbank transactions, total net trading volume in the market amounted to US$189.6 billion in Jan. 2004. The average daily turnover was US$11.2 billion (Table 1).

Transactions between banks and customers accounted for 32.4 percent of total net turnover, with interbank transactions making up the remaining 67.6 percent (Graph 1).

NT dollar/foreign currency trading accounted for 47.3 percent of total trading volume, of which the share of NT dollars against US dollars was 44.7 percent (Graph 2).

Spot transactions accounted for the lion's share with 49.6 percent of total turnover, followed by options with 20.6 percent, foreign exchange swaps with 18.1 percent (Graph 3).

Direct trades accounted for 73.9 percent of all interbank foreign exchange transactions, and the remaining 26.1 percent was through money brokers (Graph 4).

In addition to the above-mentioned foreign exchange transactions, other derivatives were also offered by authorized foreign exchange banks. The turnovers of interest rate swaps, interest rate options were US$4,480 million and US$3,986.3 million, respectively (Table 2).

Graph & Table[EXCEL][PDF]