Jun. 8, 2012 (China Knowledge) - The Monetary Authority of Hong Kong (or HKMA), Hong Kong's de facto central bank, has said that the official foreign currency reserve assets in the special administrative region had reached US$291.9 billion at the end of May, having decreased by US$3.7 billion from a month earlier.

Including unsettled forward contracts, the city's forex reserves were US$291.9 billion at the end of last month.

The US$291.9 billion in reserves is more than eight times the amount of currency in circulation in Hong Kong, and accounts for about 54% of Hong Kong's M3.

The HKMA said earlier that the total assets of Hong Kong's Exchange Fund had increased HK$47.2  billion from March to HK$2.59 trillion at the end of April. The fund's foreign currency assets increased by HK$8.1 billion, and its Hong Kong dollar assets increased by HK$39.1 billion in April.