Undeterred by the worsening US economy and near-zero returns, some of the central banks, including RBI, are buying US treasury bills in a big lot. Central monetary authorities of China, Russia, Hong Kong, Norway, Ireland and Israel have gradually bought the low-yielding sovereign dollar asset in their portfolio.
With the December buy, the total of the RBI’s holding of US T-bills touched $23.1 billion. While China continues to be the largest foreign holder of US T-Bills at $696.2 billion, Japan invested its total holding to $578.3 billion.