Malaysia’s foreign reserves at above RM400bil-level

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s foreign reserves have remained steady above the US$97billevel for the past seven months on less volatile capital flows.

According to Bank Negara, international reserves of the central bank had increased marginally to US$97.8bil as of Oct 14, 2016 from U$97.7bil as of Sept 30, 2016. In ringgit terms, the reserves were valued at RM405.6bil in mid-October, compared with RM405bil at end-September.

This compared with the central bank’s international reserves of US$96.1bil, or RM412.3bil, as of March 15, 2016.

The prevailing reserves position was sufficient to finance 8.5 months of retained imports and was 1.2 times the short-term external debt.

The main components of the international reserves were foreign currency reserves (US$89.7bil), International Monetary Fund reserves position (US$800mil), Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) (US$1.2bil), gold (US$1.5bil) and other reserve assets (US$4.6bil). The central bank’s assets included gold and foreign exchange and other reserves including SDRs (RM405.6bil), Malaysian Government papers (RM1.6bil), deposits with financial institutions (RM1bil), loans and advances (RM7.7bil), land and buildings (RM2.1bil) and other assets (RM5.7bil).

Its liabilities comprised paid-up capital (RM100mil), reserves (RM123.1bil), currency in circulation (RM91bil), deposits by federal institutions (RM167.8bil), deposits by Federal Government (RM12.8bil), other deposits (RM688.5mil), Bank Negara papers (RM7.1bil), allocation of SDRs (RM7.8bil) and other liabilities (RM13.4bil).