Hong Kong's foreign currency reserve assets amounted to 124.7 billion US dollars at the end of January, up 1.1 billion US dollars on the previous month, Hong Kong's Monetary Authority said on Monday.

Including unsettled forward contracts, foreign currency reserve assets rose 600 million US dollars from December to 124.2 billion US dollars. The amount represents about six times the currency in circulation.

Hong Kong ranks as the world's seventh largest holder of foreign currency reserves after Japan, the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, India and Russia.

(eastday.com February 8, 2005)