China's Forex reserve tops $1.68 trillion

Sounds like China intends to become a player in the foreign currency exchange market. Here's an update from the China Daily:

China's foreign exchange reserve reached $1.68 trillion at the end of March, up 39.94 percent from the same period last year, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced in Beijing Friday.

A total of 153.9 billion dollars was added to the forex reserve in the first quarter of 2008, an increment of 18.2 billion dollars more than a year ago, said the central bank.

Growth of the forex reserve has been slowing since the beginning of this year, according to Xinhua's calculation.

China's forex reserve rose about 60 billion dollars in January and 57 billion dollars in February.

In March alone, the forex reserve rose 35 billion dollars, 9.7 billion dollars less than the same month of last year.