Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: Feb. 6, 2004




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Trading Activity in the Taipei Foreign Exchange Market in Dec. 2003

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$162.5 billion in Dec. 2003. The average daily turnover was US$7.1 billion (Table 1).

Transactions between banks and customers accounted for 37.5 percent of total net turnover, with interbank transactions making up the remaining 62.5 percent (Graph 1).

NT dollar/foreign currency trading accounted for 48.3 percent of total trading volume, of which the share of NT dollars against US dollars was 45.1 percent (Graph 2).

Spot transactions accounted for the lion's share with 56.8 percent of total turnover, followed by foreign exchange swaps with 20.7 percent, options with 11.1 percent (Graph 3).

Direct trades accounted for 75.4 percent of all interbank foreign exchange transactions, and the remaining 24.6 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, foreign currency interest rate futures were US$4,205.1 million and US$825.5 million, respectively (Table 2).

Table & Graph [EXCEL][PDF]