Today s big surplus countries do not need large reserves.

For surplus countries that want to accumulate reserves, it would reduce exchange rate risk.

Latin America will finish 2007 with a current account surplus and growing foreign currency reserves, insulating them from financial crisis.

China s purchases of American debt effectively transferred the official reserves gained via China s trade surplus back to the US market.

As long as US assets were attractive to residents of surplus countries (or there was an acceptable chain of investments from surplus countries that ended in the US), these accumulations of reserves were sustainable.

But if exports continue to grow in the absence of consumption led import growth, distortions occur and the trade surplus and foreign reserves increase.

Second, China s fiscal surplus, growing foreign exchange reserves, and high savings rate have ensured the financial resources needed to maintain adequate investment and sufficiently rapid growth.

Africa s natural gas reserves amount to about 8 of global reserves.

Now it has a surplus.

Japan, with a surplus of saving, a strong currency, massive foreign exchange reserves, and factories without domestic orders, should take the lead in providing this funding for infrastructure.

Seen in this light, China s spectacular economic success including the world s largest trade surplus and foreign currency reserves owes much to US policy from the 1970 s on.

Call In the Reserves

Reserves are like savings accounts.

That's the second half of cognitive surplus.

Who gets to pocket this team surplus ?

Certainly, oil reserves are not infinite.

President Bush's tax cut, however, squandered the surplus.

In the third quarter of this year, China s foreign exchange reserves increased by 194 billion, which far exceeded the country s 66 billion trade surplus and 23 billion in inflows of foreign direct investment.

Second, countries with large accumulations of dollar reserves will be shifting substantial fractions of those reserves into euros.

Instead, China s reserves mostly underwrite America s debt.

It has 10 of global oil reserves.

But the impact will extend beyond the surplus countries.

Clay Shirky How cognitive surplus will change the world

Drastic price drop causes shortage instead of massive surplus.

Covering this drop in reserves more than half of gas reserves and a fifth of oil reserves have been consumed with imports implies an annual cost of more than 300 billion.

Partly by design and partly by chance, about a decade ago China found itself consistently accumulating large amounts of foreign reserves by running a trade surplus and intervening to buy up the dollars that this generated.

Partly by design and partly by chance, about a decade ago China found itself consistently accumulating large amounts of foreign reserves by running a trade surplus and intervening to buy up the dollars that this generated.

We have rich reserves of gas and coal.

For Global Growth and Stability, Mobilize the Reserves

Selling 2 trillion of reserves will take years.

Foreign exchange reserves are an immense 1.9 trillion.

Yes, China does pile up reserves in dollars.

Money put into reserves is income not spent.

The country has significant reserves of natural gas.

We'll have to fall back on our reserves.

Foreign reserves stood above 50 billion at the end of 1998, compared to under 9 billion a year before, thanks mostly to a 39 billion trade surplus last year, the first in nine years. This surplus enabled a stabilizing of the won at 1,200 to the dollar, compared to the 2,000 to 1 ratio of 1997.

To do so, the US will need a trade surplus.

China's current account surplus and export growth have, indeed, fallen.

Equally problematic is Germany s focus on maintaining a fiscal surplus.

This typically happens when the government runs a primary surplus.

Saudi Arabia also has a bilateral and multilateral surplus Americans want its oil, and Saudis want fewer US products. Even in absolute value, Saudi Arabia s multilateral merchandise surplus of 212 billion in 2008 dwarfs China s 175 billion surplus as a percentage of GDP, Saudi Arabia s current account surplus, at 11.5 of GDP, is more than twice that of China.

Consequently, these reserves provided the fuel for economic populism.

OPEC calculates member countries' quotas based on proven reserves.

Most developing countries have accumulated massive foreign currency reserves.

Despite all this, massive excess bank reserves remain unlent.