China's foreign exchange reserves, which are the world's largest, dwindled in February for a fourth straight month, hitting its lowest level since December 2011.

According to data released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, China's forex reserves dropped US$28.57 billion last month, sending the total to US$3.20 trillion at the end of February.

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The fall in February followed a US$99.5 billion drop in January and the US$107.9 billion in December, which was the biggest monthly drop ever.

The forex drop in February, however, was slightly less that what economists polled by Rueters had expected. The economists predicted that China's forex reserves would fall US$30 billion from US$3.23 trillion at the end of January.

The February data also suggested that the Chinese government is scaling back its interventions to support the currency.

The central bank's move to seel dollars in the currency markets to support the yuan sent the reserves falling US$513 billion last year, the largest yearly drop in the country's history.

For this year, the central bank expects the declines in foreign reserves to moderate on expectations that the yuan will stabilize.

Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan earlier said the changes in the country's foreign reserves were normal.

China has been using its foreign exchange reserves to hold up a weakening currency following a US$1-trillion capital outflows in 2015, Bloomberg has reported.

The foreign exchange reserves hit its peak with almost US$4 trillion in 2014 from US$21.2 billion in 1993.

Early this year, the central bank allowed the entry of seven more foreign institutions - the Reserve Bank of India, the International Finance Corporation, Bank for International Settlement, Bank of Thailand, Bank of Indonesia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Bank of Korea to enter the country's inter-bank forex market.

With the approval from the central bank, the seven new institutions will now be able to participate in the inter-bank foreign exchange market as foreign members.

TagsChina Foreign Exchange Reserves, China Forex, China Forex Reserves