China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, grew 23 percent in 2009 and bank lending for the year blew past government targets, keeping pressure on policymakers to take more action to cool the economy after Tuesday's increase in bank reserve requirements, reported Reuters.

China's stash of foreign currency reserves rose $126.5 billion in the fourth quarter to $2.4 trillion, the central bank said, in line with market expectations.

December's gain of $10.3 billion was the smallest since February, when reserves actually shrank, though economists said valuation effects could have been the cause.

Chinese banks doled out 9.6 trillion yuan in new loans last year, data showed on Friday, far exceeding the government's minimum target of 5 trillion yuan and amounting to nearly 30 percent of 2008 gross domestic product.

A broad measure of China's money supply slowed to annual growth of 27.7 percent in December compared with 29.7 percent in November, but analysts still expected policymakers to try to curb growth in the stock of money in the first half of 2010.

China's exports surged 17.7 percent in December from a year ago after 13 months of declines, and imports last month jumped 55.9 percent.

Most analysts believe China's tightening moves this week will have little impact on economic growth or corporate earnings, but fears persist that Beijing may be about to launch more aggressive measures that will weigh on the economy.

China also saw a 103 percent rise in foreign direct investment in December compared with a year earlier, though full year inflows shrank for the first time since 2005.

December FDI figures often reflect unusually large increases for accounting reasons.