BEIJING - China's commercial banks reported a net forex settlement surplus of 273 billion yuan ($39.1 billion) in the first quarter (Q1), the country's forex regulator said Friday.

Forex purchases by banks stood at 3.43 trillion yuan, while sales reached 3.16 trillion yuan, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed.

Despite the coronavirus-induced volatility of the international financial market, China's forex market maintained a generally stable operation in Q1 with the yuan's exchange rate and the cross-border capital flows keeping steady, said the SAFE spokesperson Wang Chunying.

Wang said China's forex market was witnessing a more "rational and mature" development trend, demonstrating that the market players are confident in the fundamentals of the Chinese economy.