Foreign Exchange Reserves

Japan's Foreign Exchange Reserves, officially International Reserves / Foreign Currency Liquidity, measure foreign assets held as intervention resources to stabilize exchange rates. The Ministry of Finance compiles them under the IMF Data Template Guidelines to show resources for stabilizing exchange rates. They cover the monetary authorities and other central government, excluding social security, as a full count with no sample.

The current series starts from end-April 2000 with no link to earlier data. It excludes private holdings and intervention amounts, which appear in a separate Foreign Exchange Intervention Operations release.

The dollar balance is measured on the last day of the month and published early in the next month with no fixed day or time. A provisional advance schedule gives the windows and also appears on the IMF Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board. Each release shows the four-part template table plus the schedule, history and CSV and SDMX downloads.

Errors are fixed in separate Revision notices, classification changes appear in the notes, and intervention amounts appear separately. The publisher states no target or trading rule.

Moves come from the five components plus market prices and exchange rates, not intervention alone.

• Foreign currency reserves: convertible assets, about four-fifths of the total, in foreign government bonds and deposits at central and commercial banks.
• IMF reserve position: Japan's reserve tranche claim on the IMF.
• SDRs: holdings of Special Drawing Rights, the IMF reserve unit.
• Gold: monetary gold at market value, with volume in millions of fine troy ounces in a memo item.
• Other reserve assets: residual reserves with financial derivatives, loans and Asian Bond Fund 2 (ABF2).
• Other foreign currency assets: loans to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) plus drains and memo items, none in the official total.

On October 31, 2023, reserves totaled 1,238,000 million dollars, up 752 million from end-September 2023 (published November 8, 2023). At end-November 2023, reserves reached 1,269,707 million, up 31,707 million from end-October 2023 (published December 7, 2023). Securities rose 20,908 million, deposits rose 8,513 million and gold rose 1,048 million while volume stayed at 27.20 million fine troy ounces. The change was price and exchange-rate revaluation, not buying or spending, so a rise or fall alone does not mean accumulation or spending.

1. Holdings: Take end-month holdings for each component with no weighting and no seasonal adjustment as a simple sum.
2. Conversion: Convert non-dollar assets and liabilities into dollars at current market exchange rates on the reference date.
3. Valuation: Value securities and gold at marked-to-market prices while gold volume stays fixed and only dollar value moves.
4. Sum: Add the five Section I.A components and never add Section I.B to the total.
5. Exclusions: Show drains and memo items separately with minus signs for Section III liabilities.
6. Example: For November 2023, 1,136,445 plus 10,536 plus 57,090 plus 55,362 plus 10,274 equals 1,269,707 million dollars.