MACAO, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Macao's investment in securities issued by entities outside reached 662.9 billion patacas (about 82.1 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of 2017, up 36.8 percent year-on-year, the special administrative region's (SAR) Monetary Authority said on Tuesday.

According to the statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, the investment includes securities bought by Macao residents, the SAR government and other legal entities, but excluding Macao's foreign exchange reserves.

Among the instruments of portfolio investment, equity securities (including mutual funds and investment trust units), long-term debt securities and short-term debt securities by the end of 2017 were valued at 240.4 billion, 393.3 billion and 29.2 billion patacas respectively (29.8 billion, 48.7 billion and 3.6 billion U.S. dollars).

Compared with the end of 2016, equity securities, long-term debt securities and short-term debt securities rose by 30.8 percent, 37.6 percent and 95.4 percent respectively.

The Asian region continued to occupy the largest share of Macao's external portfolio investment at 59.9 percent. The rest was mainly from the North Atlantic and Caribbean (15.1 percent), Europe (11.9 percent), North America (10.5 percent) and Oceania (2.2 percent).

Investment in securities issued by the Chinese mainland entities, including those Chinese securities listed on exchanges outside mainland, continued to assume a leading position, with 43.1 percent of portfolio investment in 2017. Its market value increased 52.5 percent from the end of 2016 to 285.6 billion patacas (about 35.4 billion dollars).

The market value of Macao's securities investment in countries and regions along the Belt and Road (excluding the Chinese mainland) rose 22.6 percent from the end of 2016 to 21.4 billion patacas (about 2.7 billion dollars) in 2017, equivalent to 3.2 percent of the total.