MACAO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The proportion of international liabilities in Macao's local banking sector retreated in the second quarter of 2019, the special administrative region (SAR)'s monetary watchdog said on Thursday.
According to the statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, the share of international liabilities in Mocao's total banking liabilities fell to 82.1 percent at the end of June 2019 from 82.2 percent at the end of March 2019.
Non-local currencies continued to be dominant in international banking transactions. At the end of June 2019, the share of the pataca in total international liabilities was 0.8 percent.
The Hong Kong dollar, the U.S. dollar, the renminbi and other foreign currencies accounted for 45.8 percent, 43.9 percent, 6.1 percent and 3.5 percent of total international liabilities respectively.
Total international liabilities increased 1.3 percent from three months ago and 17.9 percent year-on-year to 1,590.2 billion patacas (about 197.6 billion dollars).
Of this total, external liabilities and local liabilities in foreign currencies expanded 18.6 percent year-on-year to 811.1 billion patacas (about 100.5 billion dollars) and 17.1 percent to 779.1 billion patacas (about 96.6 billion dollars) respectively.
Foreign currency deposits held by residents and the SAR government in local banks continued to form a major component of international liabilities. This type of deposits grew 18.4 percent year-on-year to 691.2 billion patacas (about 85.7 billion dollars) at the end of June 2019.
Hong Kong SAR and Chinese mainland accounted for 49.8 percent and 22.1 percent of the total external liabilities respectively, while Britain and France took up 2.9 percent and 1.8 percent respectively.
Portuguese-speaking countries and the Belt and Road countries represented 0.5 percent and 12.6 percent respectively.
