KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 22): Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) international reserves inched up US$400 million to US$105.7 billion as at Dec 15, from US$105.3 billion as at Nov 30.

In a statement today, BNM said the reserves position is sufficient to finance 8.8 months of retained imports and is 1.2 times the total short-term external debt.

Among the five components of the international reserves, the largest, foreign currency reserves, slipped to US$96.7 billion from US$97.9 billion two weeks ago.

Unchanged were International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserves, which stayed at US$1.4 billion, gold at US$2.4 billion, and Special Drawing Rights at US$1.1 billion.

The biggest change was in other reserve assets, which rose to US$4.1 billion from US$2.5 billion previously.

The bank’s total assets slipped to RM488.677 billion as at Dec 15, down 0.23% from RM489.786 billion as at Nov 30.