BEIJING, July 19 -- China's commercial banks saw a net forex settlement deficit of 248.8 billion yuan (about 34.9 billion U.S. dollars) in June, official data showed on Friday.

In yuan terms, forex purchases by banks stood at around 1.22 trillion yuan, while sales reached about 1.47 trillion yuan, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed.

In the first half of the year, positive factors, including the relatively high surplus of trade in goods, and the recovering trade in services, contributed to China's stable flow of cross-border capital, according to the administration.

The net increase in foreign holdings of domestic bonds stood at a higher level at 80 billion U.S. dollars in the first half, which also helped stabilize cross-border capital flow.

The administration said that China has the conditions and basis to continue to ensure a basically steady cross-border capital flow, with the country's gross domestic product reporting a stable 5 percent year-on-year growth in the first half. With the implementation of a combination of macro policies, the steady and long-term growth of the economy will be consolidated.

Meanwhile, China's foreign exchange market shows strong resilience as enterprises' risk management capability in foreign exchange rates has improved and the proportion of cross-border use of renminbi has steadily increased, it said.