KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 7): Bank Negara Malaysia's international reserves slipped US$100 million or 0.1% to US$103.2 billion as at Oct 31 this year, according to the central bank in a statement today, from US$103.3 billion as at Oct 15.
"The reserves position is sufficient to finance 7.6 months of retained imports and is 1.1 times total short-term external debt," BNM said.
There are five components to the reserves, of which the largest portion is foreign currency reserves, which rose to US$96.8 billion from US$96.7 billion two weeks ago. Of the remainder four, International Monetary Fund reserves position stayed the same at US$1.1 billion, as did Special Drawing Rights or SDRs at US$1.1 billion, and gold at US$1.9 billion, while other reserve assets retreated to US$2.3 billion from US$2.5 billion.
In terms of the bank's total assets, it was recorded at RM458.63 billion versus RM460.19 billion previously, while currency in circulation expanded to RM109.97 billion from RM108.91 billion.