The country's foreign exchange reserves - the world's largest - rose by $6.5 billion to $3.226 trillion last month, compared with $3.205 trillion tipped by a Reuters poll of analysts and $3.219 trillion in January.

The yuan fell 0.25% against the dollar in February, while the dollar last month rose 0.6% against a basket of other major currencies.

China held 72.58 million fine troy ounces of gold at the end of February, up from 72.19 million ounces at the end of January.

The value of China's gold reserves rose to $148.64 billion at the end of February from $148.23 billion at the end-January.

(Reporting by Albee Zhang and Kevin Yao; Editing by Himani Sarkar)