Taipei, May 9, 2008 (CENS)--Thanks to the inbound remittance of overseas investment gains by insurance firms, Taiwan`s outstanding foreign exchange reserves increased by US$2.517 billion from March to US$289.377 billion at the end of April, the highest of its kind ever recorded, according to the central bank here.

With steady increase seen over the last several months, Taiwan`s outstanding forex reserves are very likely to break the US$300 billion mark in the third quarter of this year, market observers predicted.

Currently Taiwan is the world`s fifth-largest holder of forex reserves, next to China, Japan, Russia and India, which boasted forex reserves of US$1.6822 trillion, US$987.7 billion, US$402.1 billion and US$302.3 billion, respectively.

As of today, Taiwan`s life insurance firms have launched a total of NT$2.3 trillion (US$71.88 billion at US$1 = NT$32) in overseas investments. However, the recent weak U.S. dollar in the international market has made Taiwanese investors scale down their investment abroad and some of them have remitted capital back home.

Moreover, the worsening U.S. economic climate has forced international hot money to flow into the emerging economic powers in Asia. As of the end of the first quarter this year, major economic powers in Asia, including China, Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, together witnessed forex reserves reach a total of US$3.5 trillion.

At the end of March, S. Korea saw its outstanding forex reserves stand at US$263.8 billion and Brazil at US$188.5 billion. Singapore and Hong Kong closely followed with US$178.8 billion and US$157.1 billion, respectively.

(by Judy Li)