National Reserve Bank of Tonga

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2018

Foreign Reserves rose by $23.9 million over February

Details: Category: Press Release; Created: 12 March 2018

Official foreign reserves held by the National Reserve Bank of Tonga (NRBT) rose by $23.9 million over the month of February 2018 to $448.0 million, equivalent to 8.1 months of imports. The rise was mainly attributed to receipts of $22.6 million, for the Tropical Cyclone Gita Relief fund. Over the past year, the official foreign reserves rose by $70.3 million.

OFFICIAL FOREIGN RESERVES

(millions of pa'anga)

	Level	Changes		Ration of official foreign reserves to imports ⁱ (months)
	Level	Month	12 Months

2016
Oct	367.0	3.3	51.2	7.0
Nov	360.9	-6.1	41.9	6.7
Dec	378.8	17.9	51.0	7.1

2017
Jan	380.8	2.0	54.5	7.1^r
Feb	377.7	-3.1	49.2	6.9^r
Mar	366.0	-11.7	48.7	6.7^r
Apr	371.7	5.7	48.8	6.7^r
May	392.3	20.6	61.6	7.1^r
Jun	407.9	15.6	53.0	7.5^r
Jul	408.9	1.0	41.5	7.7^r
Aug	405.0	-3.9	38.7	7.5^r
Sep	403.0	-2.0	39.3	7.4^r
Oct	413.6	10.6	46.6	7.6^r
Nov	424.8	11.2	63.9	7.8^r
Dec	422.5	-2.3	43.7	7.7^r

2018
Jan	424.1	1.6	43.3	7.7^r
Feb	448.0	23.9	70.3	8.1

Source: National Reserve Bank of Tonga
i - Method of calculation changed in February 2017 to include imports of both goods and services (previous method used imports of goods only).
r - Revisions was due to the receipt of updated Trade data from Statistics Department for the December 2016 quarter and the receipt of the import data from the Ministry of Revenue & Customs up to December 2017.