JAPAN DATA: A finance ministry officials says the increase in March
foreign reserves was largely due to the recent change to include loans
to the International Monetary Fund in each country’s foreign reserves.
It was also because of forex intervention and the euro’s rise to
$1.4186 at end-March in Tokyo from $1.3763 a month earlier. The IMF
reserve position was up sharply from $4.7 billion in February after an
international agreement to shift loans to the IMF to “official
reserves assets” from “other foreign currency assets.” At the end of
last month, Japan’s foreign currency reserves stood at $1.041
trillion, IMF reserves at $17.52 billion, SDRs at $21.25 billion, gold
at $35.40 billion and other reserve assets at $445 million.