Foreign exchange reserves up slightly in April

The city’s foreign exchange reserves reached MOP137.3 billion (US$17.2 billion) as at the end of April this year, which is a slight increase of 0.3 per cent compared to the MOP136.9 billion as at March this year, the latest official data released by the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM) showed.
The AMCM data indicates that the latest value of foreign exchange reserves also represents a jump of 14 per cent compared to MOP120.3 billion one year ago.
In addition, the foreign exchange reserves of the Special Administrative Region at the end of April represented 12 times the currency in circulation or Pataca M2 as at the end of March, which, according to the recent monetary and financial statistics released by the monetary authority, amounted to some MOP11.4 billion.
Meanwhile, the trade-weighted effective exchange rate index for the pataca, which is a gauge of the domestic currency’s exchange rates against the currencies of the city’s major trading partners, registered a month-on-month decline of 0.34 points to 104.85. Nevertheless, the latest rate index as at the end of April is an increase of 7.74 points from the same period of last year, according to AMCM.
K.L.