Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: Mar. 31, 2003




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Trading in the Taipei Foreign Exchange Market in Feb. 2003

The trading in the Taipei foreign exchange market includes all foreign exchange transactions made by authorized foreign exchange banks and offshore banking units. After deducting double counting on the part of interbank transactions, total net trading volume in the market amounted to US$100.3 billion in Feb. 2003. The average daily turnover was US$6.3 billion (Table 1).

In terms of trading partners, transactions between banks and customers accounted for 33.2 percent of total net turnover, with interbank transactions making up the remaining 66.8 percent (Graph 1).

In terms of traded currencies, NT dollar trading against foreign currencies accounted for 45.3 percent of total trading volume, of which the share of NT dollars against US dollars was 42.2 percent (Graph 2).

With respect to types of transactions, spot transactions accounted for the lion's share with 59.0 percent of total turnover, followed by foreign exchange swaps with 15.9 percent, Options with 12.6 percent (Graph 3).

In terms of the way transactions were made, the direct trade accounted for 73.7 percent of the interbank foreign exchange transactions, through money brokers for the remaining 26.3 percent (Graph 4).

In addition to the above-mentioned foreign exchange transactions, there are some other derivatives offered by the authorized foreign exchange banks. The turnover of interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements were US$1,765.3million and US$788.9 million, respectively (Table 2).

Graph & Table[EXCEL][PDF]