The Authority said that the reserves increased by 1.5 percent from the revised value of 14.75 billion U.S. dollars for the previous month and 31.6 percent when compared with the same period of last year.
Meanwhile, the SAR's foreign exchange reserves at end-July this year represented 29 times the currency in circulation or about 231.9 percent of Pataca M2 at end-June 2008.
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, dropped by 0.4 points month-to-month or 4.66 points year-on-year to 86.6 in July this year.
