KUALA LUMPUR (March 24): Malaysia’s international reserves dropped US$300 million to US$118 billion as at March 14 this year, from US$118.3 billion as at end-February.

According to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in a statement on Monday, the latest reserves position is sufficient to finance five months of imports of goods and services, and is equivalent to 0.9 times the total short-term external debt.

Short-term external debt comprises borrowings from non-residents with a 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. These obligations can be met in the normal course of operations from their external asset holdings, and do not pose any claims on BNM’s international reserves, the statement read.

The international reserves comprise five components, the largest being foreign currency reserves, which dipped to US$105.6 billion, from US$105.9 billion as at Feb 28 this year, while the country’s reserve position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) remained unchanged at US$1.2 billion.

Special drawing rights — a category of reserve assets according to the IMF’s specifications, based on a basket of major currencies — were unchanged at US$5.7 billion, as were the central bank’s gold holdings, which were kept at US$3.3 billion, and other reserve assets, at US$2.2 billion.

BNM’s total assets stood at RM639.86 billion as at March 14 — as opposed to RM639.51 billion as at Feb 28 — while currency in circulation rose to RM175.87 billion, from RM174.28 billion.