Impact of U.S. Interest-Rate Increases on China Capital Flows Has Reduced -Regulator

U.S. interest-rate increases are having a smaller impact on China's capital flows than before, the country's foreign-exchange regulator said.

"China is getting better at adapting" to the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest-rate increases, Wang Chunying, a spokeswoman for the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said at a briefing Thursday.

China's capital-outflow pressure eased notably in the first quarter, thanks to improving domestic economic performance and a weakening U.S. dollar, Ms. Wang said.

The authorities have stepped up compliance scrutiny but the country's foreign-exchange policies haven't changed, she said. "China won't return to the old path of foreign-exchange controls," she said.

Chinese banks sold a net $11.6 billion of foreign exchange in March, compared with $10.1 billion a month earlier, SAFE said.

They sold a net $40.9 billion in the January to March period, compared with net sales of $124.8 billion in the same period of last year, official data showed.

Write to Grace Zhu at grace.zhu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 19, 2017 23:39 ET (03:39 GMT)