Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: Jan. 30, 2002




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Trading in the Taipei Foreign Exchange Market in Dec. 2001

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$103.9 billion in Dec. 2001. The average daily turnover was US$4.9 billion (Table 1).

In terms of trading partners, transactions between banks and customers accounted for 44.1 percent of total net turnover, with interbank transactions making up the remaining 55.9 percent (Graph 1).

In terms of traded currencies, NT dollar trading against foreign currencies accounted for 63.3 percent of total trading volume, of which the share of NT dollars against US dollars was 60.1 percent (Graph 2).

With respect to types of transactions, spot transactions accounted for the lion's share with 66.0 percent of total turnover, followed by foreign exchange swaps with 14.7 percent, Options with 9.1 percent (Graph 3).

In terms of the way transactions were made, the direct trade accounted for 68.1 percent of the interbank foreign exchange transactions, through money brokers for the remaining 31.9 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 forward rate agreement, interest rate swaps were US$1,085 million and US$1,027.1 million, respectively (Table 2).

tables & graphs[EXCEL][PDF]