Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: June 30, 2003



Trading in the Taipei Foreign Exchange Market in May 2003

The trading in the Taipei foreign exchange market covers all foreign exchange transactions made by authorized foreign exchange banks and offshore banking units. After deducting double counting of interbank transactions, total net trading volume in the market amounted to US$146.5 billion in May 2003. The average daily turnover was US$7.0 billion (Table 1).

In terms of trading partners, transactions between banks and customers accounted for 32.7 percent of total net turnover, with interbank transactions making up the remaining 67.3 percent (Graph 1).

In terms of traded currencies, NT dollar against foreign currencies trading accounted for 41.9 percent of total trading volume, of which the share of NT dollars against US dollars was 38.8 percent (Graph 2).

With respect to types of transactions, spot transactions accounted for the lion's share with 56.5 percent of total turnover, followed by foreign exchange swaps with 19.1 percent, Options with 13.8 percent (Graph 3).

In terms of the way transactions were done, the direct trade accounted for 75.2 percent of the interbank foreign exchange transactions, through money brokers for the remaining 24.8 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$3,507.5 million and US$1,631.1 million, respectively (Table 2).

Graph&Table[EXCEL][PDF]