China releases reserves data at the end of each quarter, so its figures for July are unknown.

China's reserves grew $101 billion in the first six months of 2005 to $711 billion, taking Asia's total to $2.58 trillion at the end of June.

Analysts said foreign money flows into Asia had slowed in the past three to four weeks, even after China and Malaysia scrapped their dollar pegs and floated their currencies last month and raised market expectations of further appreciation in the yuan and ringgit.

The yuan has gained a mere 0.1 percent since being revalued by 2.1 percent to 8.11 per dollar on July 21.

Excluding China, total reserves in the rest of Asia have fallen in four of the past seven months. Many of the regional central banks had intervened to sell dollars in the first half of the year as a strengthening US economy pushed up the dollar.

Japan and Indonesia suffered falls in reserves in dollar terms in July.

India and Malaysia, the latter's market being a major target for speculators betting on ringgit appreciation, saw the biggest rise in reserves.

In April 2005, China used $15 billion of foreign exchange reserves to inject capital into Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In December 2003, China used $45 billion of reserves -- about 10 percent of its holdings at that time -- to bail out Bank of China and China Construction Bank. Those funds are not included in this figure.