Exchange Fund Abridged Balance Sheet and Currency Board Account

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (Thursday) that the total assets of the Exchange Fund amounted to HK$982.0 billion as at 28 February 2002.

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 February 2002, the total assets of the Exchange Fund, at HK$982.0 billion, were HK$9.6 billion lower than at the end of January 2002. Foreign currency assets increased by HK$1.9 billion while Hong Kong dollar assets decreased by HK$11.5 billion.

The increase in foreign currency assets was mainly due to an increase in Certificates of Indebtedness and income from foreign currency asset, which were partly offset by a decrease in the amounts of repurchase agreements outstanding.

The decrease in Hong Kong dollar assets was mainly due to the decrease in market value of Hong Kong equities held by the Exchange Fund and fiscal drawdowns.

Figures in the Currency Board Account show that the monetary base at the end of February 2002 was HK$237.8 billion, an increase of HK$1.8 billion, or 0.8%, from the end of January 2002. The increase was mainly due to an increase in Certificates of Indebtedness of HK$1.3 billion during the month.

The backing assets increased by HK$2.3 billion, or 0.9%, from HK$263.0 billion to HK$265.3 billion. The rise was mainly driven by the corresponding increase in Certificates of Indebtedness in the monetary base and net income from investments together with revaluation gains of HK$1.0 billion. Reflecting this, the backing ratio increased from 111.45% at the end of January to 111.58% at the end of February.

Attachment
Annex 1 : Abridged Balance Sheet of the Exchange Fund
Annex 2 : Currency Board Account

For further enquiries, please contact:

Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480 or
Sylvia Yip, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
28 March 2002

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 March 2002, the scheduled dates for issuing the press releases are as follows: