China's foreign exchange reserves had climbed to 987.9 billion U.S. dollars by the end of September, up 28.46 percent on the previous year, the People's Bank of China reported on Friday.

The central bank report said the reserves increased by 169 billion dollars in the first nine months of the year.

Official figures show the increase in reserves fell to 15.9 billion dollars in September from 17.5 billion dollars in August, but still higher than July's 13.6 billion dollars.

Statistics released on Thursday by the General Administration of Customs showed that China's trade surplus in the first nine months of this year hit 109.85 billion dollars, higher than the total of 101.88 billion dollars for the whole year in 2005.

The large growth in trade surplus has exerted greater pressure on the country to appreciate its currency value.

The yuan's value rose to 7.9087 to the U.S. dollar at the end of September, bringing the currency's total appreciation to more than 2.66 percent since reform of the RMB exchange rate system began in July last year.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China placed great importance on the rational use of the foreign exchange reserves which should be used to increase imports of advanced technologies and to support the financial reforms and companies' restructuring efforts.

Wen also said restrictions on the use of reserves by corporations and residents should be eased.

China plans to wipe out the trade surplus by increasing imports. The trade volume is set to reach 2.3 trillion dollars by 2010 with an annual growth of about 10 percent.

Source: Xinhua