Foreign reserves

How many months of imports a country's reserves could pay for.

Total reserves are the foreign currency, gold and IMF assets a central bank holds. Dividing them by a month's imports of goods and services shows how long a country could keep paying for imports if money from abroad stopped: the buffer against a crisis. Three months is a common rule of thumb for a safe minimum. The IMF compiles the figures from central banks, and the World Bank republishes them.

• Economy
• Reserves
• Central banks
• Balance of payments
• Country
• Year