The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said China's outstanding external debt, or foreign debt, reached US$863.2 billion at the end of 2013.

The figure was 17 percent higher from a year earlier and covers only the existing foreign debt of mainland China. The figure does not include the outstanding foreign debt of Hong Kong and Macao and even Taiwan.

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Based on the data released by SAFE, which is China's foreign exchange regulatory body, registered foreign debt reached US$526.7 billion while the balance of trade credit between businesses reached US$336.5 billion.

Safe said majority of the debt owed to external lenders were derived from short-term borrowing, as outstanding foreign debt with a term of one year or less reached around US$ 676.6 billion, while long- and medium-term outstanding foreign debt registered at US$186.5 billion.

US dollar-denominated debt accounted for 79.6 percent of the total foreign debt while liabilities denominated in euros and Japanese yen accounted for 5.54 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

SAFE, however, stressed that the country's foreign liability is still within the internationally-recognized safety range.

Experts do not see any risk in the recently reported foreign debt because they said China has a large pile of foreign reserves. A SAFE official also said that China's foreign exchange reserve, which is the largest in the world, stood at US$3.8 trillion at the end of 2013.

In fact, SAFE's deputy director of capital account management Guo Song said China's foreign debt risk has been decreasing.