KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 23): Malaysia racked up the largest hoard of foreign reserves in nearly a decade by Sept 13, according to its central bank.

The latest international reserves totalled US$117.6 billion, the most since Dec 15, 2014, compared to US$116.8 billion at the end of August, Bank Negara Malaysia said in a statement on Monday.

"The reserves position is sufficient to finance 5.5 months of imports of goods and services, and is one times the total short-term external debt," it said.

Bank Negara releases data on foreign exchange reserves every two weeks.

Among the reserves components, foreign currency reserves rose to US$105.4 billion from US$104.5 billion on Aug 30 while the International Monetary Fund reserves slipped to US$1.2 billion from US$1.3 billion.

The remaining reserve components stayed the same, with special drawing rights unchanged at US$5.7 billion, gold at US$2.9 billion, and other reserve assets at US$2.4 billion.

The central bank's total assets stood at RM653.59 billion as at Sept 13.