Hong Kong's Latest Foreign Currency Reserve Assets Figures Released

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (Thursday) that the official foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong amounted to US$128.9 billion at the end of August 2006 (end-July 2006: US$127.4 billion) (Table 1).

Including unsettled forward contracts, the foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong at the end of August 2006 also stood at US$128.9 billion (end-July 2006: US$127.4 billion).

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

The total foreign currency reserve assets of US$128.9 billion represent over six times the currency in circulation or about 40% of HongKong dollar M3.

Tables 1 & 2

For further enquiries, please contact:
Hing-Fung Wong, Officer (Press), at 2878 1802 or
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
7 September 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 September 2006, the scheduled dates for issuing the press releases are as follows: