China to increase gold reserves to diversify risks: Report

SHANGHAI: China's central bank is considering hiking increasing gold reserves nearly seven-fold to spread risks in its huge foreign exchange holdings, state media reported on Wednesday.

Beijing is mulling a move to increase its reserves to 4,000 tonnes from the current 600 tonnes. It did not provide further details.

The People's Bank of China declined to immediately comment on the report when contacted.

China has emerged as the world's largest and fastest-growing holder of foreign exchange reserves, which totalled more than 1.9 trillion dollars at the end of September, according to the central bank.

China became the largest foreign holder of US treasury debt in September ahead of Japan, according to US Treasury Department figures released Tuesday.