Tourists visit the Ruins of St. Paul's in South China's Macao Special Administrative Region, on Oct 8, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)

MACAO - The preliminary estimate of Macao's foreign exchange reserves amounted to 189.2 billion patacas ($23.71 billion) at the end of August 2020, the special administrative region's monetary watchdog said here on Monday.

The latest statistics from the Monetary Authority of Macao indicated that the reserves decreased by 3.0 percent from the revised value of 195.1 billion patacas ($24.43 billion) in July.

Macao's foreign exchange reserves at the end of August 2020 represented 10 times the currency in circulation or 81.7 percent of pataca M2 at the end of July 2020.

The trade-weighted effective exchange rate index for the pataca dropped by 1.51 points month-to-month and 2.04 points year-on-year to 105.7 in August 2020, implying that overall speaking, the exchange rate of the pataca declined against the currencies of Macao's major trading partners.