Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves down, still 4th highest in world

Taipei, August 6 (CNA) Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell by $127 million during the month of July to $391.1 billion because of the depreciation of major currencies, the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) said Monday.

Although the figure was down due to the depreciation of the euro against the US dollar, Taiwan still had the fourth highest foreign reserves in the world behind China, Japan, and Russia, said Lin Sun-yuan, director-general of the central bank’s Department of Foreign Exchange.

According to the bank, the market value of securities and Taiwan dollar deposits held by foreign portfolio investors at the end of July 2012 was $193.7 billion, equivalent to about 50 percent of the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

There was a net outflow of $2.79 billion in foreign investor funds during the month.

Though Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves were lower than $400 billion for the ninth consecutive month, South Korea, the country’s major trade rival, saw its reserves increase $1.2 billion in July to $305.4 billion.

China, which releases foreign reserve data on a quarterly basis, had $3.24 trillion in foreign reserves as of the end of June.

Japan was second with foreign reserves of $1.196 trillion, followed by Russia with $454.9 billion as of the end of June, respectively.

Among other countries, India had $256.4 billion in foreign reserves as of July 27, while Singapore had $240.6 billion last month and Hong Kong had $287 billion in foreign reserves in June.

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Category: Taiwan