Banks in China logged a foreign exchange settlement surplus of $16 billion in March, according to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange released Wednesday.
Chinese banks purchased $257.6 billion and sold $273.6 billion in foreign exchange, the filing said.
In renminbi terms, the country's banks held a surplus of 110.3 billion yuan, with forex purchases at 1.889 trillion yuan and sales of 1.779 trillion yuan.
The March labor force data in Australia was broadly in line with expectations, and the trend for employment growth was turning more positive before the onset of the Middle East conflict, Westpac said in a note on Thursday.The lender cautioned that it is too early to expect flow-on effects from the Middle East conflict or from recent interest rate rises to be appearing in labor market measures. The data instead gives a picture of the starting point for the labor market before these forces impact.Australia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 4.3% in March, unchanged from the previous month, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed. The total number of employed people increased by 17,900, bringing the total to 14.8 million. Westpac's forecast for employment was 25,000.The data provided clarity that lower unemployment rates around the turn of the year were a result of temporarily weaker participation, not a sustained re-tightening, per the note.The bank's baseline forecast assumes an eight-week closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a gradual recovery in shipping and transit afterwards. In such a case, trimmed mean inflation is expected to peak at around 4% on an annual basis in the second half, and the central bank is expected deliver three more rate hikes in May, June, and August.The labor market is likely to be a "lagging indicator" of the economy, and any flow-through from higher fuel prices or global uncertainty is more likely to show up later in the year, Westpac added. It forecast the unemployment rate to lift to a quarter-average of 4.9% and stay around that level over 2027 as interest rate rises impact.
China's gross domestic product in the first quarter rose 5%, according to Thursday data from the National Bureau of Statistics.The official data beat the 4.8% growth forecasted by Reuters-surveyed analysts.The data was attributed to an acceleration in the growth of the country's production and supply and improving market demand, as well as a rebound in market prices and stable employment.
China's fixed asset investment rose 1.7% year over year to 10.3 trillion yuan in the first three months of the year.Private fixed asset investment decreased 2.2%, according to a Thursday news release by the National Bureau of Statistics.Industrial investment climbed 5.8%, while infrastructure investment increased 8.9%.On a monthly basis, fixed asset investment, excluding rural households, increased 0.5% in March.