MACAO, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The foreign exchange reserves in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) reached 163.2 billion patacas (20.26 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of January this year, the SAR's monetary authority said on Thursday.

The foreign exchange reserves increased by 0.6 percent from the revised value of 162.3 billion patacas (20.17 billion dollars) for the previous month, the Monetary Authority of Macao SAR said.

Macao SAR's foreign exchange reserves represented 11 times the currency in circulation, or 89.3 percent of pataca M2 at the end of last year.

The trade-weighted effective exchange rate index for the pataca dropped 2.09 points month-to-month and 7.55 points year-on-year to 102.1 in January, implying that the exchange rate of the pataca declined against the currencies of Macao's major trading partners.