Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 Foreign reserves achieve new high
Japan's foreign exchange reserves rose in August by $19.6 billion to a record $1.042 trillion, largely due to an increase in its holdings of special drawing rights at the InternationalMonetaryFund
the Finance Ministry said Monday.
The ministry said Japan received allocations of the equivalent of $15.3 billion worth of SDRs, a synthetic currency, from the Washington-based lender late last month.
SDRs are considered foreign reserves because they can be converted to necessary currencies, including dollars and euros.
Japan's foreign reserves, the world's second-largest after China's, renewed the record for the first time since December, also due to a rise in the value of its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and euro-denominated assets, the ministry said. The previous record was $1.031 trillion.
Japan's foreign exchange reserves consist mainly of securities and deposits denominated in foreign currencies, gold, and reserve positions and SDRs at the IMF.
In April, leaders from the Group of 20 major nations agreed to pump $250 billion into member countries' foreign exchange reserves to bolster liquidity amid the economic crisis.
SDRs can be used for transactions among IMF member countries and converted into dollars and other currencies.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20090908a2.html
