Hong Kong's Latest Foreign Currency Reserve Assets Figures Released

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (Friday) that the official foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong amounted to US$150.4 billion at the end of November 2007 (end-October 2007: US$142.2 billion) (Table 1).

The US$8.2 billion increase in settled foreign currency assets in the month of November was due mainly to the purchase of foreign currencies with Hong Kong dollars.

Including unsettled forward contracts, the foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong at the end of November 2007 stood at US$150.6 billion (end-October 2007: US$143.7 billion).

Hong Kong is the world's ninth largest holder of foreign currency reserves based on the latest published figures, after Mainland China, Japan, Russia, India, Taiwan, Korea, Brazil and Singapore (Table 2).

The total foreign currency reserve assets of US$150.4 billion represent over seven times the currency in circulation or about 31% of Hong Kong dollar M3.

Tables 1 & 2

For further enquiries, please contact:
Peggy Lo, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687 or
Hing-fung Wong, Officer (Press), at 2878 1802

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
7 December 2007

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 December 2007, the scheduled dates for issuing the press releases are as follows: