The spectacular growth in China’s foreign currency reserves appears to have ended, say economists, after the inflow of speculative “hot money” started to seep out of the economy in the fourth quarter of last year.

The reserves rose by $40.4bn (€30.9bn, £27.7bn) in the fourth quarter to $1.946bn, the government said this week, well below the total trade surplus and foreign direct investment over that period, indicating a substantial outflow of short-term capital.