HK foreign currency reserve assets reaches $150.4 bln

HONG KONG, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced Friday that the official foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong amounted to 150.4 billion U.S. dollars at the end of November, compared with 142.2 billion at the end of October.

The authority said that the 8.2 billion U.S. dollars increase in settled foreign currency assets in the month of November was due mainly to the purchase of foreign currencies with Hong Kong dollars.

Including unsettled forward contracts, the foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong at the end of November stood at 150.6 billion U.S. dollars.

Hong Kong is the world's ninth largest holder of foreign currency reserves based on the latest published figures, after the Chinese mainland, Japan, Russia, India, China's Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil and Singapore.

The total foreign currency reserve assets of 150.4 billion U.S. dollars represent over seven times the currency in circulation or about 31 percent of Hong Kong dollar M3.