KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian central bank's international reserves stood at $133.6 billion as of December 31, down from $135 billion on December 15, the central bank said on Monday.
The reserves were enough to finance 9.7 months of retained imports and were 4 times the short-term external debt.
The reserves level has taken into account the quarterly adjustment of foreign exchange revaluation loss, following the strengthening of the ringgit against some major currencies during the quarter.
For the full year 2011, the international reserves rose by 94.8 billion ringgit to 423.4 billion ringgit (end-2010: 328.7 billion ringgit).
The higher reserves reflected mainly the current account surplus and inflows of foreign direct investment, portfolio capital and other investments. However, these inflows were partly offset by direct investment abroad.
In addition, there was also a cumulative unrealized foreign exchange revaluation gain following the strengthening of some of the major currencies against the ringgit during the year.
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