Official Reserve Assets

Release date: 8 January 2019

Table 1: Presents data on official reserve assets denominated in Australian dollars.

Table 2: Expresses these figures in US dollar terms.

Changes in the value of official reserve assets reflect purchases and sales (including swaps) of foreign exchange by the Reserve Bank, earnings on foreign securities and valuation effects arising from changes in the foreign currency value of the assets and exchange rates.

Table 1: Official Reserve Assets(A$ million)This table presents Australian dollar data on the level and composition of the Reserve Bank's Official Reserve Assets (ORA) holdings as at the end of the relevant month. Total ORA is disaggregated into foreign exchange, Special Drawing Rights, the reserve position in the International Monetary Fund and gold.

Table 2: Official Reserve Assets(US$ million)

Notes

1. The A$ values shown for SDRs and Reserve position in the IMF are at the IMF basket valuation for the SDR, which is published in terms of US dollars and crossed with the representative rate for the Australian dollar in terms of the US dollar. Gold is valued at the Australian dollar equivalent of the 3 pm price fix in the London gold market on the last business day of the month. The foreign currency value of other overseas assets is based, where applicable, on market quotations; accrued interest is normally taken into account. Conversion to Australian dollar equivalent normally is based on end month market rates of exchange. Figures in Table 2 have been converted to US dollar values using the end-month AUD/USD exchange rate.
2. The sum of gold and foreign exchange may differ from figures reported in the weekly Statement of Liabilities and Assets and the Bank's Annual Report. From 1 July 1996, foreign currency securities sold and cash lent under repurchase agreements as well as gold lent under gold loan transactions are retained for accounting purposes as foreign currency investments in the Bank's balance sheet, along with cash received under repurchase agreements, in accordance with standard accounting treatment. For the purpose of reporting foreign exchange reserves in this table, however, securities sold and cash lent under repurchase agreements are excluded along with gold lent under gold loan transactions. Foreign currency securities received under repurchase agreements are excluded from both the RBA's balance sheet and from official reserve assets.
3. The above data are based on information available at the time of publication and are subject to revision. The sum of components may not reconcile with the total amount for Official Reserve Assets due to rounding.
4. Additional data on Australia's International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity will be available on the Reserve Bank's web site towards the end of the month.
5. For information on changes to the RBA's methodology for compiling Australia's foreign reserve holdings from January 2015, please see ‘Reporting Australia's Foreign Reserve Holdings’.