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$1,063.0 billion at 31 March 2004.

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

At the end of March 2004 the total assets of the Exchange Fund, at HK$1,063.0 billion, were HK$19.5 billion lower than at the end of February 2004. Both foreign currency assets and Hong Kong dollar assets decreased, by HK$12.4 billion and HK$7.1 billion respectively.

The decrease in foreign currency assets was mainly due to a decrease in securities purchased but settled in the following month which was partly offset by valuation gains on foreign currency investments and income from foreign currency assets. The decrease in Hong Kong dollar assets was mainly due to fiscal drawdowns and valuation losses in the market value of Hong Kong equities held by the Exchange Fund which were partly offset by an increase in bank borrowings.

The Currency Board Account shows that the Monetary Base at the end of March 2004 was HK$322.3 billion, a decrease of HK$0.9 billion, or 0.27%, from the end of February 2004. The decrease was mainly due to a decrease in Certificates of Indebtedness of HK$0.7 billion.

The Backing Assets decreased by HK$0.1 billion, or 0.04%, to HK$353.7 billion. The decrease was mainly driven by the corresponding decrease in Certificates of Indebtedness, which was partly offset by income from investments and revaluation gains. Reflecting this, the backing ratio increased from 109.51% at the end of February to 109.76% at the end of March.

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
30 April 2004

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 April 2004, the scheduled dates for issuing the press releases are as follows: