The People's Bank of China, the central bank, would establish a foreign exchange department.

With the approval of the State Council, the Cabinet, major functions of the new department include: administering foreign exchange, regulating domestic foreign exchange market, conducting analysis on the global foreign exchange market and international capital flows and advising to policy makers, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday.

This would increase the total number of departments under the central bank to 19 from 18 after its last institutional reorganization in 2003.

Different from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the new department is to focus more on policy work instead of detailed management.

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2008)