Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: December 1, 2004



Trading Activity in the Taipei Foreign Exchange Market

In October 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$208.2 billion in October 2004. The average daily turnover was US$10.41 billion (Table 1).

Transactions between banks and customers accounted for 31.8 percent of total net turnover, with interbank transactions making up the remaining 68.2 percent (Graph 1).

NT dollar/foreign currency trading accounted for 47.5 percent of total trading volume, of which the share of NTD/USD trades was 45.0 percent (Graph 2).

Spot transactions accounted for the lion¡¦s share with 49.6 percent of total turnover followed by options with 15.0 percent and foreign exchange swaps with 24.2 percent (Graph 3).

Direct trades accounted for 69.5 percent of all interbank foreign exchange transactions, and the remaining 30.5 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 and interest rate options were US4, 156 million and US$571 million, respectively (Table 2).

Graph & table[EXCEL][PDF]