KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 22): Malaysia’s international reserves fell by US$700 million by mid-January this year, from a fortnight earlier, according to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).
The latest foreign exchange reserves totalled US$115.5 billion, compared with US$116.2 billion at the end of 2024, the central bank said in a statement.
The reserves position was sufficient to finance 4.9 months of imports of goods and services, and was one times the country's total short-term external debt, it said.
The short-term external debt comprised borrowings from non-residents with maturity of one year or less, mostly by resident banks for their foreign currency liquidity operations as well as multinational corporations, including foreign banks, borrowing from their overseas parents or headquarters.
Among the main components, foreign currency reserves slipped to US$103 billion from US$103.7 billion as at end-December, while the reserves position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was unchanged at US$1.2 billion.
Special drawing rights — reserve assets maintained by the IMF based on a basket of currencies — were also flat at US$5.7 billion, and there was no change in value of BNM's gold holdings at US$3.3 billion.
Other reserve assets were unchanged at US$2.3 billion.