Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced Wednesday that the city's official foreign currency reserve assets amounted to 226.9 billion U.S. dollars at the end of September, up 3.6 billion dollars from August's 223.3 billion dollars.

Including unsettled forward contracts, the foreign currency reserve assets of Hong Kong at the end of September, 2009 stood at229.2 billion U.S. dollars, also higher than the 223.3-billion dollar by the end of August.

Based on these latest figures, Hong Kong remains the world's seventh largest holder of foreign currency reserves following the Chinese mainland China, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, India and Korea.

The total foreign currency reserve assets of 226.9 billion U.S. dollars represent about nine times the currency in circulation or 50 percent of Hong Kong dollar M3.