The foreign exchange reserves of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) was preliminarily estimated at 17.21 billion U.S. dollars at the end of April, according to the figures released on Friday by the SAR's Monetary Authority.

The reserves for April rose by 2.2 percent from the revised value of 134.3 billion (16.83 billion dollars) for the previous month, and the figure increased by 17.7 percent, when compared with the same period last year, the Monetary Authority said.

Macao SAR's foreign exchange reserves at the end of April 2009 represented 31 times the currency in circulation or 247 percent of Pataca M2 at the end of March 2009, according to the Authority.

The trade-weighted effective exchange rate index for the pataca, a gauge of the domestic currency's exchange rates against the currencies of Macao's major trading partners, fell by 0.68 point month-to-month but rose by 5.59 points year-on-year to 92.58 in April 2009, according to the Authority.

(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2009)