Reserve Currency - Global Currency Reserves

Global Currency Reserves

A 2011 study about the current dominant reserve currency in central banks shows that dollar may not be the obvious dominant currency, because of the major part of Unallocated Reserves increasingly reported by central banks since 2001. Thus the following table is only a limited view about the global currency reserves because it only deals with Allocated Reserves:

Currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Latest Data
'12 Quarter II
US dollar 59.0% 62.1% 65.2% 69.3% 71.0% 70.5% 70.7% 66.5% 65.8% 66.0% 66.4% 65.7% 64.1% 64.1% 62.1% 61.8% 62.2% 61.9%
Euro 17.9% 18.8% 19.8% 24.2% 25.3% 24.9% 24.3% 25.2% 26.3% 26.4% 27.6% 26.0% 25.0% 25.1%
German mark 15.8% 14.7% 14.5% 13.8%
French franc 2.4% 1.8% 1.4% 1.6%
Pound sterling 2.1% 2.7% 2.6% 2.7% 2.9% 2.8% 2.7% 2.9% 2.6% 3.2% 3.6% 4.2% 4.7% 4.0% 4.3% 3.9% 3.8% 3.8%
Japanese yen 6.8% 6.7% 5.8% 6.2% 6.4% 6.3% 5.2% 4.5% 4.1% 3.8% 3.7% 3.2% 2.9% 3.1% 2.9% 3.7% 3.5% 3.8%
Swiss franc 0.3% 0.2% 0.4% 0.3% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1%
Other 13.6% 11.7% 10.2% 6.1% 1.6% 1.4% 1.2% 1.4% 1.9% 1.9% 1.9% 1.5% 1.8% 2.2% 3.1% 4.4% 5.4% 5.3%
Sources:

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