This is a list of the top 50 sovereign states of the world sorted by their foreign exchange reserves excluding gold reserves, but including special drawing rights (SDRs) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserve positions.
Rank | Country or region | Foreign exchange reserves -Excluding Gold (millions of US$) | Figures as of | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | People's Republic of China | 3,301,320 | January 2024 | [1] |
2 | Japan | 1,238,541 | January 2024 | [2] |
3 | Switzerland | 755,903 | January 2024 | [3] |
4 | India | 574,872 | January 2024 | [4] [lower-alpha 1] |
5 | Taiwan | 564,009 | January 2024 | [5] [6] |
6 | Russia | 442,537 | January 2024 | [7] [1] |
7 | Saudi Arabia | 439,123 | January 2024 | [1] [8] |
8 | Hong Kong | 415,580 | January 2024 | [9] [1] |
9 | South Korea | 408,085 | January 2024 | [10] |
10 | Brazil | 346,424 | January 2024 | [11] [1] |
11 | Singapore | 344,592 | January 2024 | [12] [1] |
12 | United States | 234,110 | January 2024 | [1] |
13 | Thailand | 208,280 | January 2024 | [13] [1] |
14 | Mexico | 206,351 | January 2024 | [14] [1] |
15 | Poland | 169,998 | January 2024 | [1] |
16 | United Arab Emirates | 158,509 | January 2024 | [1] |
17 | United Kingdom | 157,340 | January 2024 | [1] |
18 | Czech Republic | 145,333 | January2024 | [15] [1] |
19 | Indonesia | 130,147 | January 2024 | [16] [1] |
20 | Canada | 117,550 | January 2024 | [17] [1] |
21 | Malaysia | 110,860 | January 2024 | [18] [1] |
22 | Iraq | 102,764 | January 2024 | [1] |
23 | Germany | 100,391 | January 2024 | [1] |
24 | Denmark | 95,845 | January 2024 | [1] |
23 | Philippines | 88,326 | January 2024 | [1] |
24 | Italy | 84,819 | January 2024 | [1] |
25 | Spain | 84,417 | January 2024 | [1] |
26 | Norway | 80,648 | January 2024 | [19] [1] |
27 | France | 79,200 | January 2024 | [1] |
28 | Libya | 77,391 | January 2024 | [1] |
29 | Algeria | 69,708 | January 2024 | [1] |
28 | Peru | 69,095 | January 2024 | [20] [21] [1] |
29 | Romania | 66,128 | January 2024 | [1] |
30 | Colombia | 58,730 | January 2024 | [1] |
31 | Australia | 56,605 | January 2024 | [1] |
32 | South Africa | 54,176. | January 2024 | [1] |
33 | Sweden | 52,526 | January 2024 | [22] [1] |
34 | Kuwait | 46,987 | January 2024 | [1] |
35 | Qatar | 44,844 | January 2024 | [1] |
36 | Bulgaria | 43,624 | January 2024 | [1] |
37 | Chile | 41,360 | January 2024 | [1] |
38 | Hungary | 39,453 | January 2024 | [1] |
39 | Ukraine | 38,709 | January 2024 | [1] |
40 | Nigeria | 33,852 | January 2024 | [1] |
41 | Morocco | 33,141 | January 2024 | [1] |
42 | Netherlands | 29,218 | January 2024 | [1] |
43 | Belgium | 25,800 | January 2024 | [1] |
44 | Egypt | 25,323 | January 2024 | [1] |
45 | Serbia | 24,920 | January 2024 | [1] |
46 | Bangladesh | 20,928 | January 2024 | [1] |
47 | Guatemala | 20,854 | January 2024 | [1] |
48 | Argentina | 18,986 | January 2024 | [1] |
49 | Syria | 16,667 | January 2024 | [1] |
50 | Kazakhstan | 16,454 | January 2024 | [1] |
The economy of Cameroon was one of the most prosperous in Africa for a quarter of a century after independence. The drop in commodity prices for its principal exports – petroleum, cocoa, coffee, and cotton – in the mid-1980s, combined with an overvalued currency and economic mismanagement, led to a decade-long recession. Real per capita GDP fell by more than 60% from 1986 to 1994. The current account and fiscal deficits widened, and foreign debt grew. Yet because of its oil reserves and favorable agricultural conditions, Cameroon still has one of the best-endowed primary commodity economies in sub-Saharan Africa.
A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base. Many central banks also have supervisory or regulatory powers to ensure the stability of commercial banks in their jurisdiction, to prevent bank runs, and in some cases also to enforce policies on financial consumer protection and against bank fraud, money laundering, or terrorism financing.
Special drawing rights are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SDRs are units of account for the IMF, and not a currency per se. They represent a claim to currency held by IMF member countries for which they may be exchanged. SDRs were created in 1969 to supplement a shortfall of preferred foreign exchange reserve assets, namely gold and U.S. dollars. The ISO 4217 currency code for special drawing rights is XDR and the numeric code is 960.
A reserve currency is a foreign currency that is held in significant quantities by central banks or other monetary authorities as part of their foreign exchange reserves. The reserve currency can be used in international transactions, international investments and all aspects of the global economy. It is often considered a hard currency or safe-haven currency.
The Reserve Bank of India, abbreviated as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. Owned by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, it is responsible for the control, issue and maintaining supply of the Indian rupee. It also manages the country's main payment systems and works to promote its economic development. Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (BRBNM) is a specialised division of RBI through which it prints and mints Indian currency notes (INR) in two of its currency printing presses located in Mysore and Salboni. The RBI, along with the Indian Banks' Association, established the National Payments Corporation of India to promote and regulate the payment and settlement systems in India. Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation was established by RBI as one of its specialized division for the purpose of providing insurance of deposits and guaranteeing of credit facilities to all Indian banks.
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, and Australia as well as 44 other countries after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars to within 1% of fixed parity rates, with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks at US$35 per troy ounce of fine gold. It also envisioned greater cooperation among countries in order to prevent future competitive devaluations, and thus established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to monitor exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to nations with balance of payments deficits.
A country's gross external debt is the liabilities that are owed to nonresidents by residents. The debtors can be governments, corporations or citizens. External debt may be denominated in domestic or foreign currency. It includes amounts owed to private commercial banks, foreign governments, or international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
In macroeconomics, an open market operation (OMO) is an activity by a central bank to give liquidity in its currency to a bank or a group of banks. The central bank can either buy or sell government bonds in the open market or, in what is now mostly the preferred solution, enter into a repo or secured lending transaction with a commercial bank: the central bank gives the money as a deposit for a defined period and synchronously takes an eligible asset as collateral.
Foreign exchange reserves are cash and other reserve assets such as gold and silver held by a central bank or other monetary authority that are primarily available to balance payments of the country, influence the foreign exchange rate of its currency, and to maintain confidence in financial markets. Reserves are held in one or more reserve currencies, nowadays mostly the United States dollar and to a lesser extent the euro.
The Russian financial crisis began in Russia on 17 August 1998. It resulted in the Russian government and the Russian Central Bank devaluing the ruble and defaulting on its debt. The crisis had severe impacts on the economies of many neighboring countries.
The Bank of Mozambique is the central bank of Mozambique. The bank does not function as a commercial bank, and has the responsibility of governing the monetary policies of the country. The president of the Republic appoints the governor. The bank is situated in the capital, Maputo, and has two branches, one in Beira and one in Nampula. The Bank of Mozambique is active in developing financial inclusion policy and is a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
Central bank liquidity swap is a type of currency swap used by a country's central bank to provide liquidity of its currency to another country's central bank. In a liquidity swap, the lending central bank uses its currency to buy the currency of another borrowing central bank at the market exchange rate, and agrees to sell the borrower's currency back at a rate that reflects the interest accrued on the loan. The borrower's currency serves as collateral.
The Nepal Rastra Bank was established April 26, 1956 A.D. under the Nepal Rastra Bank Act, 1955, to discharge the central banking responsibilities including guiding the development of the embryonic domestic financial sector. As of now, the NRB is functioning under the new Nepal Rastra Bank Act, 2002. The functions of NRB are to formulate required monetary and foreign exchange policies so as to maintain the stability in market prices, to issue currency notes, to regulate and supervise the banking and financial sector, to develop efficient payment and banking systems among others. The NRB is also the economic advisor to the government of Nepal. As the central bank of Nepal, it is the monetary, supervisory and regulatory body of all the commercial banks. development banks, finance companies and micro-finances institutions.
A Spahn tax is a type of currency transaction tax that is meant to be used for the purpose of controlling exchange-rate volatility. This idea was proposed by Paul Bernd Spahn in 1995.
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