Foreign Exchange Reserves

Foreign Exchange Reserves are the portion of gross international reserves held as foreign currency assets — such as bank deposits, treasury bills and other highly liquid instruments denominated in major international currencies. This Latin Macro Watch indicator from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) lets analysts, researchers and policymakers monitor external buffers and exchange-rate stability across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Coverage

The indicator covers 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean at annual, monthly and quarterly frequency, spanning 1990–2026. Values are published in millions of USD, as a share of GDP and as a share of short-term external public debt, with period-average and end-of-period variants. Available transformations include 3-, 6- and 12-month moving averages (MA3, MA6, MA12) and month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year percentage changes (MoM %, QoQ %, YoY %).

Sources

Data are compiled from national central banks and statistical agencies, including the Banco Central do Brasil, the Banco Central de Chile, the Banco de Mexico (Banxico), the Bank of Jamaica and the Central Bank of The Bahamas, then standardized by the IDB for cross-country comparison within the Latin Macro Watch database.

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Format	CSV
Language	en
Country	Argentina Bahamas Trinidad & Tobago Belize Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia El Salvador Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Panama Uruguay Venezuela Barbados Paraguay Peru Suriname
Data notes	What does the Foreign Exchange Reserves indicator measure? It measures the portion of gross international reserves held as foreign currency assets, such as bank deposits, treasury bills and other highly liquid instruments denominated in major international currencies. How many countries and which frequencies and period are covered? The indicator covers 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean at annual, monthly and quarterly frequency, spanning 1990 to 2026. What units and transformations are available? Values come in millions of USD, as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of short-term external public debt, with period-average and end-of-period variants. Transformations include MA3, MA6 and MA12 moving averages and MoM %, QoQ % and YoY % changes. Where does the data come from? Data are sourced from national central banks and statistical agencies such as the Banco Central do Brasil, the Banco Central de Chile, the Banco de Mexico (Banxico), the Bank of Jamaica and the Central Bank of The Bahamas, then standardized by the IDB. What is this indicator typically used for? It is used to assess external liquidity, reserve adequacy, exchange-rate stability and a country's capacity to meet short-term external obligations across Latin America and the Caribbean. How do I cite this indicator? Cite it as: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Latin Macro Watch — "Foreign Exchange Reserves". data.iadb.org/dataset/latin-macro-watch-dataset.