SINGAPORE - To ring in Chinese New Year, new notes and good-as-new $2 notes will be available at retail banks from Jan 20, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a press release on Monday.

Good-as-new notes are clean and crisp notes retrieved immediately after the previous Chinese New Year.

MAS added that it will continue to work with the Association of Banks in Singapore and other partners to promote the use of good-as-new $2 notes as the initiative has been well received since it was introduced in 2013.

The proportion of "good-as-new" $2 notes increased to 17 per cent of the total number of $2 notes issued during Chinese New Year in 2015 - up from 11 per cent in 2013.

Mr Low Kwok Mun, MAS' assistant managing director for Finance, Risk and Currency, said: "We are encouraged by the positive public response to good-as-new $2 notes.

"In the three years since the initiative was launched, we have almost doubled the amount of energy saved from printing fewer $2 notes. The energy saved in 2015 could power a hundred four-room HDB flats for seven weeks compared with only four weeks in 2013."

The public should visit the "Ask for Good-as-New Notes" Facebook page for more information about the MAS' "Go Green" initiative.

Students from East View Primary School will be appointed as green ambassadors to advocate and initiate the movement.