China recorded a surplus of some 440 billion US dollars in its current account balance in 2008, said the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) on Wednesday.

The surplus was an increase of 20% from a year earlier, said SAFE. However, it added that the new growth rate was 27 percentage points lower than in 2007.

Despite maintaining double-surplus in both its current and capital accounts, the growth rate had slowed. The current account surplus, as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), had last year shrunk to 10% from 11% in 2007, said Deng Xianhong, deputy director of SAFE, in a news conference.

The net inflow of foreign exchange funds in the second half of last year plunged more than 50% to 137.2 billion US dollars compared with the first half of the year amidst the international financial crisis, he added.

Deng also denied there was a mass withdrawal of foreign funds from China. However, he did not disclose details of the capital account during the news conference.

Also revealed on Wednesday was that China's foreign exchange reserves had reached some 1.95 trillion US dollars by the end of last year.