KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Malaysian central bank, Bank Negara, said Tuesday its international reserves stood at 104.2 billion U.S. dollars as of Aug. 15.

The reserves were 300 million U.S. dollars lower when compared with the 104.5 billion U.S. dollars as of July 31.

The central bank said in a statement that the reserves position is sufficient to finance 7.6 months of retained imports and is 0.9 times the short-term external debt.

"The short-term external debt is mostly accounted by banking institutions, reflecting the centralization of liquidity management of Malaysian banks operating in the region and the sizeable presence of foreign banks in Malaysia," said the bank.

"These institutions hold substantial external assets, which can be drawn upon to meet their external obligations without creating a claim on Bank Negara Malaysia's international reserves," it added.

The international reserves consisted of 97.8 billion U.S. dollars in foreign currency reserves, 900 million U.S. dollars in International Monetary Fund Reserves Position, 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in Special Drawing Rights, 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in gold and 2.8 billion U.S. dollars in other reserves assets.