BEIJING, Nov 27 - China's foreign exchange reserves will exceed $2 trillion by the end of the year but they have not reached that level yet, Yao Jingyuan, chief economist at the National Bureau of Statistics, said on Thursday,

News agencies earlier quoted Yao as telling a forum that China's reserves had already topped $2 trillion.

But Yao told Reuters that he had been misunderstood.

"What I mean is the reserves will hit $2 trillion by the end of the year. That is my estimate," he said.

China's reserves stood at $1.9056 trillion at the end of September.

They rose $96.8 billion in the third quarter and increased $41.9 billion per month on average in the first nine months.

If the reserves had already jumped to $2 trillion, it would have suggested a rapid acceleration in the pace of reserves accumulation that could be explained only by a resurgence of speculative capital inflows into China.

However, officials have said recently that capital inflows and outflows are broadly balanced and the central bank has taken administrative measures to clamp down on unauthorised capital outflows.