Foreign exchange reserves are cash and other reserves held by a central bank of a country that are primarily available for imports, influencing the exchange rate of the currency and to maintain confidence in the financial markets. Foreign exchange is typically held in a reserve currency, usually the United States Dollar and sometimes the Euro. Foreign exchange reserves also include reserves in gold.

The chart above presents foreign exchange reserves as a percentage of the country's GDP. Some countries (like China ($3 trillion) and India ($476 billion)) hold a large amount of foreign exchange reserves, so normalizing the foreign exchange reserves with respect to the country's GDP shows a better picture of the foreign exchange position.