BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- China will raise the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points to 13 percent for commercial banks from Oct. 25, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced on Saturday.

This is the eighth such move this year and only one month after the seventh hike of half a percentage point on Sept. 25.

The move is aimed at "strengthening liquidity management in the banking system and checking excessive credit growth", the central bank said in a statement.

After the eighth rise, the reserve requirement ratio has reached a ten-year high.

The move came after the central bank's announcement on Friday that the country's foreign exchange reserve has exceeded 1.43 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of September, up 45.1 percent from the same period last year.

A total of 367.3 billion U.S. dollars were added to the country's foreign exchange reserve in the first nine months, 120 billion U.S. dollars more than the increment in the entire 2006.

The huge foreign exchange reserve is considered the main reason for excess liquidity in China, as the central bank has to spend money to purchase foreign exchange, aggravating the problem.