China cuts holdings of US Treasury bonds

The U.S. Treasury Department says that for the third consecutive month, China continued to cut its holdings in treasury bonds in November.

China is the world's largest U.S. treasury bond buyer and the Treasury says in a report that China had cut its holdings to 1.25 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of November. That was 2.3 billion U.S. dollars less than in October.

At the same time, Japan -- the second largest holder -- purchased more than 19-billion-U.S. dollars worth of bonds in November and expanded its total holdings to 1.24 trillion U.S. dollars.

U.S. treasury bonds held by foreign buyers reached 6.11 trillion U.S. dollars in November and more than 4.1 trillion U.S. dollars of that was held by foreign governments.

Meanwhile, China's foreign reserves dropped to 3.84 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of December but remained the largest in the world.