This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on October 23, 2019 - October 29, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) international reserves rose US$300 million or 0.29% to US$103.3 billion as at Oct 15 this year, from US$103 billion as at Sept 30, the central bank said in a statement yesterday.

“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.

The reserves comprise five components, namely: foreign currency reserves at US$96.7 billion, International Monetary Fund reserves position at US$1.1 billion, Special Drawing Rights at US$1.1 billion, gold at US$1.9 billion — all of which stayed the same as two weeks ago — and other reserve assets, which rose to US$2.5 billion from US$2.2 billion.

The bank’s total assets stood at RM460.192 billion, while currency in circulation stood at RM108.909 billion.