Beijing to create forex investment agency

China’s central bank is working on a new agency that will better invest its US$3.5 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, South China Morning Post reported, citing two anonymous sources. The new agency would be in addition to the China Investment Corp, the nation’s sovereign wealth fund. People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan has assigned a division head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the country’s foreign exchange regulator, to lead a small team to study the feasibility of such a unit. Beijing set up the CIC, the country’s first officially recognized sovereign wealth fund, in 2007. It has US$480 billion of assets under management.