Bank Negara Malaysia published its international reserves position as at 31 December 2024, reporting reserves of USD116.2 billion. The level was sufficient to finance 5.0 months of imports of goods and services and was equivalent to 1.0 times total short-term external debt. The reserves figure incorporates quarterly foreign exchange revaluation changes. Using the previous import coverage measure, reserves would have covered 5.8 months of retained imports of goods. The short-term external debt comparison uses reserves data as at 31 December 2024 and short-term external debt data as at 3Q 2024, with the debt valued using the exchange rate as at 3Q 2024; the debt is defined as borrowing from non-residents with maturity of one year or less and is described as largely linked to resident banks’ foreign currency liquidity operations and multinational companies’ borrowing from overseas parents, with these obligations generally met from external asset holdings rather than claims on Bank Negara Malaysia’s reserves.
Bank Negara Malaysia 2025-01-08
Bank Negara Malaysia reports USD116.2 billion in international reserves covering 5.0 months of imports at end-December 2024
Bank Negara Malaysia reported international reserves of USD116.2 billion as of 31 December 2024, sufficient to finance 5.0 months of imports and equivalent to 1.0 times total short-term external debt. The reserves incorporate quarterly foreign exchange revaluation changes and would cover 5.8 months of retained imports under the previous measure. Short-term external debt is mainly linked to resident banks' foreign currency liquidity operations and multinational companies' borrowing from overseas parents.