Japan Gold reserve hits record high of $40.56 bln in August

TOKYO(Scrap Monster): A new record has been hit by the gold reserves of Japan at $40.56 billion at the end of August while total reserves improved marginally to $1.2732 trillion, as per latest data released by country's Finance ministry.

Foreign reserves of Japan rose slightly to $1.2732 trillion at the end of August from $1.2728 trillion at end-July according to country's Finance ministry. This was a second straight rise as higher gold prices and the appreciation of the euro offset lower prices of U.S. Treasury notes.

At the end of January Japan's foreign reserves hit a record high of $1.307 trillion. Japan's forex reserves remain the second largest in the world after China's, which stood at $3.240 trillion at the end of June.

Japan's foreign currency reserves stood at $1.20 trillion, IMF reserves at $14.28 billion, SDRs at $19.65 billion, gold at $40.56 billion and other reserve assets at $486 million at the end of last month,.

The forex reserve data of Japan are closely watched for evidence of how the country is managing its vast foreign currency holdings.

When the Bank of Japan intervenes in the currency market on behalf of the Ministry of Finance to prevent a steep appreciation or depreciation of the yen exchange rate usually the biggest changes in Japan's forex reserves occur.

The reserves were pushed up by the Japanese government's large-scale forex intervention to sell yen for the U.S. Currency in September 2010 , the first government intervention in over six years in a bid to prevent the yen's rapid rise from hurting exporter profits and thus a sustained economic recovery.