KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s reserves have increased vastly from just over US$20 billion in August 1998 when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the prime minister and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was finance minister.
Barisan Nasional strategic communications deputy director Datuk Eric See-To noted that the country’s international reserves had risen persistently amid strong exports and capital inflows.
“Bank Negara Malaysia’s reported that (its) international reserves stood at US$107.8 billion as at March 30, 2018. This is up sharply from US$102.4 billion as at December 29 2017 and the US$94.6 billion as at end-2016.
“This is a big difference compared to the reserves of just US$20.2 billion in August 1998 when Mahathir was PM and Anwar was Finance Minister,” he said in a statement.
Bank Negara had on April 6 said at US$107.8 billion as at March 30, the reserves position was sufficient to finance 7.4 months of retained imports and was 1.1 times the short-term external debt.
The international reserves had risen from US$103.9 billion as at March 15.
The central bank added that the reserves level had taken into account the adjustment for foreign exchange revaluation changes.
The main components of the international reserves were foreign currency reserves (US$101.3 billion), International Monetary Fund reserves position (US$0.8 billion), Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) (US$1.2 billion), gold (US$1.6 billion), and other reserve assets (US$2.9 billion).
The assets included gold and foreign exchange and other reserves, including SDRs (RM416.39 billion), Malaysian government papers (RM4.08 billion), deposits with financial institutions (RM5.83 billion), loans and advances (RM7.41 billion), land and buildings (RM4.18 billion), and other assets (RM11.52 billion).