New Order of Coins to Meet Demand

Press Releases

26 Sep 1997

New Order of Coins to Meet Demand

The Government announced today it has confirmed the placement of an order for more than 700 million pieces of coins to be delivered to Hong Kong over the next few months. About 70% of this new order will be in smaller denominations of 10 cents, 20 cents and 50 cents as these are in greater demand than coins of larger denominations.

This order brings the total new coins expected to be placed into circulation in a year to a record 1.1 billion pieces. “This quantity of order is unprecedented as the normal order volume per year is about 300 to 400 million pieces in the past,” said a spokesman of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

Year to date, the HKMA has injected 400 million pieces of new coins into circulation, with an additional 80 million pieces to be injected by mid-October.

The history of coins in Hong Kong exceeds 100 years and the number of coins outstanding is about 4 billion pieces. Of these, it is estimated that about 1 billion pieces are either held by collectors or lost during the past decades leaving 3 billion pieces in active circulation today.

“It is expected that by early next year when all 1.1 billion pieces are injected into circulation, the current coin shortage situation will be alleviated substantially," said the HKMA spokesman.

 

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
26 September 1997

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