The foreign reserves of many major Asian economies have been shrinking over the past few months, as central banks tap into their coffers to back their weakening home currencies against the rising US dollar.

Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC, says declines in foreign reserves in central banks in Asia suggest a number of them have intervened in the foreign exchange markets in the past few months.

“It’s natural for central banks to do so when there are big foreign