MACAO, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- The preliminary estimate of the foreign exchange reserves in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) amounted to 154.8 billion patacas (about 19.20 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of September this year, the Monetary Authority of Macao said on Monday.

The reserves decreased by 3.0 percent from the revised value of 159.5 billion patacas(19.73 billion U.S. dollars) for the previous month. Macao's foreign exchange reserves at the end of September 2018 represented 10 times the currency in circulation, or 79.6 percent of patacas M2 at end-August 2018.

The trade-weighted effective exchange rate index for the pataca dropped 0.13 points month-to-month but rose 1.92 points year-on-year to 105.5 in September 2018, implying that overall speaking, the exchange rate of the pataca declined against the currencies of Macao's major trading partners on a monthly basis but increased on an annual basis.