Hong Kong's Latest Foreign Currency Reserve Assets Figures Released

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (Monday) that the official foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong amounted to US$124.3 billion at the end of December 2005 (end-November 2005: US$122.4 billion) (Table 1).

Including unsettled forward contracts, the foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong at the end of December 2005 also stood at US$124.3 billion (end-November 2005: US$122.4 billion).

Hong Kong is the world's seventh largest holder of foreign currency reserves, after Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Russia and India (Table 2).

The total foreign currency reserve assets of US$124.3 billion represent over six times the currency in circulation or about 41% of Hong Kong dollar M3.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Jasmin Fung, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Hing-Fung Wong, Resource Co-ordinator, at 2878 1802

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
9 January 2006

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 January 2006, the scheduled dates for issuing the press releases are as follows:

Table 1

Foreign Currency Reserve Assets of Hong Kong
(US$ billion)

Figures for the end of 1995 and 1996 do not include Land Fund figures. The Land Fund was established on 1 July 1997 and its foreign currency reserve assets were included thereafter in the above compilation. The assets of the Land Fund were merged into the Exchange Fund in November 1998.

* The latest monthly figures are preliminary and subject to change.

Table 2

Official Reserves Ranking

Sources : HKMA, Reuters, the websites of International Monetary Fund, other central banks and monetary authorities, etc.