MACAO, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The preliminary estimate of the foreign exchange reserves in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) reached 158.4 billion patacas (about 19.61 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of October, the SAR's Monetary Authority said on Wednesday.

The reserves increased by 2.3 percent from the revised value of 154.8 billion patacas (about 19.20 billion dollars) for the previous month. It also represented 10 times the currency in circulation, or 81.6 percent of pataca M2 at the end of September.

The trade-weighted effective exchange rate index for the pataca rose 1.02 points month-to-month and 1.94 points year-on-year to 106.5 in October, implying that overall speaking, the exchange rate of pataca grew against the currencies of Macao's major trading partners.