2018

Reserve Bank recorded a $22.8 million decline of the Foreign Reserves

Official foreign reserves held by the National Reserve Bank of Tonga (NRBT) declined by $22.8 million over the month of September 2018 to $452.2 million, equivalent to 7.3 months of imports. The commencement of the principal repayment to the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank of China contributed to this decline. The official foreign reserves however rose over the year by $49.2 million. The annual growth mainly resulted from higher receipts of budgetary support, grants and cyclone relief funds from development partner. In addition, higher receipt of remittances during the year contributed further to the yearly increase.

OFFICIAL FOREIGN RESERVES
(millions of pa'anga)

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

2017        
May 392.3 20.6 61.6 7.1
Jun 407.9 15.6 53.0 7.5
Jul 408.9 1.0 41.5 7.5
Aug 405.0 -3.9 38.7 7.4
Sep 403.0 -2.0 39.3 7.3
Oct 413.6 10.6 46.6 7.5
Nov 424.8 11.2 63.9 7.7
Dec 422.5 -2.3 43.7 7.6

2018        
Jan 424.1 1.6 43.3 7.4r
Feb 448.0 23.9 70.3 7.9
Mar 447.7 -0.3 81.7 7.8
Apr 445.9 -1.8 74.2 7.7
May 441.9 -4.0 49.6 7.5
Jun 468.7 26.8 60.8 7.8
Jul 476.5 7.8 67.6 7.8r
Aug 475.0 -1.5 70.0 7.7r
Sep 452.2 -22.8 49.2 7.3

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 March 2018 quarter and the receipt of the import data from the Ministry of Revenue & Customs up to June 2018.

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