Exchange Fund Abridged Balance Sheet and Currency Board Account

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (Friday) that the total assets of the Exchange Fund amounted to HK$1,058.5 billion at 31 July 2005.

The figure is included in the Exchange Fund Abridged Balance Sheet, which is released monthly together with the Currency Board Account.

At the end of July 2005 the total assets of the Exchange Fund, at HK$1,058.5 billion, were HK$0.6 billion higher than at the end of June 2005. Foreign currency assets decreased by HK$3.0 billion while Hong Kong dollar assets increased by HK$3.6 billion.

The decrease in foreign currency assets was due mainly to decreases in Certificates of Indebtedness and repurchase agreements outstanding. The increase in Hong Kong dollar assets was due mainly to an increase in bank borrowings and valuation gains in the market value of Hong Kong equities held by the Exchange Fund, which was partly offset by fiscal drawdowns.

The Currency Board Account shows that the Monetary Base at the end of July 2005 was HK$279.3 billion, a decrease of HK$2.1 billion, or 0.7%, from the end of June 2005. The decrease was due mainly to a decrease in Certificates of Indebtedness.

The Backing Assets decreased by HK$1.6 billion, or 0.5%, to HK$309.7 billion. The decrease was attributable mainly to the corresponding decrease in Certificates of Indebtedness in the Monetary Base and revaluation losses on investments, which was partly offset by income from investments. Reflecting this, the backing ratio increased from 110.62% at the end of June 2005 to 110.88% at the end of July 2005.

Attachment

Annex 1 : Abridged Balance Sheet of the Exchange Fund
Annex 2 : Currency Board Account

For further enquiries, please contact:

Kevin Ip, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687 or
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
26 August 2005

At present, four press releases relating to the Exchange Fund's data are issued by the HKMA each month. Three of these releases are issued to disseminate monetary data in accordance with the International Monetary Fund's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). The fourth press release, on the Exchange Fund's Abridged Balance Sheet and Currency Board Account, is made in accordance with the HKMA's policy of maintaining a high level of transparency. For the month of August 2005, the scheduled dates for issuing the press releases are as follows: