NOMISMA

Foreign Exchange Reserves

外貨準備 / foreign exchange reserves — Institutions

Currency reserves held by a central bank. In the post-Cold War world, much of these have been held in dollars.

One-dollar Federal Reserve note (current) One-dollar Federal Reserve note (current)Current (this piece from the 2003A series)
A photograph of what this word names.

Foreign currency reserves held by a central bank. They are the ammunition to defend the exchange rate and the nation's last-resort purse in a crisis. In the post-Cold War world, the majority continues to be held in dollars.

⚠ South Korea in 1997 demonstrated that the depletion of these reserves can itself become a national crisis.