BEIJING: Underground banks in China did more than 1 trillion yuan ($152 billion) in transactions last year and the government will step up efforts to combat the problem this year, state media said on Saturday.

China’s economic slowdown and market volatility have sparked a wave of capital outflows running into hundreds of billions this year, triggering alarms for China’s forex management system. Zhang Shenghui, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s inspection division, told the official Xinhua news agency his department last year had participated in breaking up more than 60 underground banks suspected of doing more than 1 trillion yuan in transactions.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2016