The rupee plunged 20 paise to close at an all-time low of 78.13 against the US dollar on Monday, as a lacklustre trend in domestic equities and stronger greenback overseas weighed on investor sentiments. Forex traders said weak Asian currencies and persistent foreign capital outflows were the other major factors that dragged the local unit down. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened at 78.20 and witnessed an intra-day high of 78.02 and a low of 78.29 against the US dollar.
India's foreign exchange reserves surged $5.04 billion in the week ending March 28, its biggest weekly rise in four months, as the central bank started to buy dollars regularly in an effort to build up its defences against any potential global turmoil.
The country's foreign exchange reserves rose by $2.04 billion to $639.52 billion in the week ended October 8, according to RBI data. In the previous week ended October 1, the reserves had dipped by $1.17 billion to $637.48 billion. The reserves had surged by $8.90 billion to a life time high of $642.45 billion in the week ended September 3.
'Rhetoric and chest-thumping are running high on India's recent growth record.'
'But will the giant waves developing elsewhere allow us to sail smoothly into fair winds?' asks Debashis Basu.
India's foreign exchange reserves surged further by $1.6 billion to cross the $106 billion mark for the week ended February 6.
Traders who pay in rupees generate over Rs 50 crore in daily cryptocurrency volumes. Indians actually invest a great deal more in forex-denominated trades, observes Devangshu Dutta, explaining why it is impossible to ban cryptocurrency.
Snapping its 3-day winning spree against the American currency, the rupee on Wednesday dropped by 21 paise to end at 66.64 on fag-end dollar demand from banks and importers despite a sharp rally in domestic equities.
With yet another record inflows of over $1 billion during the week ending December 12, 2003, India's foreign exchange reserves neared the $100 billion mark.
India's foreign exchange reserves surged ahead in the first week of the new fiscal following fresh accretion of over $1 billion to move past the record levels of $112 billion during the week ended April 2, 2004.
As the Indian currency hovers around its lowest versus the US greenback, several smaller and mid-sized companies are expected to face rough weather as almost 44 per cent of the foreign loans taken by Indian companies remained unhedged. According to the data sourced from the Reserve Bank of India, Indian companies raised around $38.2 billion in the financial year ended in March. Of this, only 56 per cent of the loans are hedged while the rest of the foreign loans remain unhedged, thus risking the companies to forex volatility.
India's foreign exchange reserves touched $301.23 billion by the end of February 2008. Over $102 billion have been added to the reserves since the beginning of the financial year (April 2007) due to huge capital flows, and remittances as well as weakening of dollar. The reserves stood at $294.61 billion at the end of February 22, 2008. The forex kitty swelled by $6.62 billion, amongst the largest accretion to reserves in a span of a week.
The report said the import cover has gone down to seven months, last seen in 1998 and hence, RBI will focus on recouping the reserves.
The reserves have been surging by over $3 billion for the last two consecutive weeks. The forex reserves stood at $288.316 billion, up by $3.418 billion a week before.
Deutsche Bank on Monday completed the first forex option transaction in India. The transaction, which was a 6-month dollar/rupee risk reversal, was inked by Deutsche Bank for Reliance in Mumbai, an official release said.
The foreign currency assets increased by $1.808 billion to stand at $224.870 billion as against $223.062 billion in the previous week, the Reserve Bank data stated.
The amount involved is just 3.6 per cent of our forex reserves and the gains to be made are huge -- not to try the idea would be foolhardy.
India needs foreign exchange buffer reserves to insulate itself from exchange rate volatility as we have "no friends" for swap lines and Japan was the only country that helped during the taper tantrum in 2013, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Tuesday. Participating in a virtual event organised by economic think tank NCAER, Rajan said during the taper tantrum in 2013, India asked for swap lines, and only country who helped was Japan. "We need this (foreign exchange) reserve buffer to insulate ourselves because we have no friends.
India's foreign exchange reserves declined by $685.1 million to $274.81 billion in the week ended August 30 due to a dip in the foreign currency assets, the Reserve Bank said.
India's forex reserves went up by $75 million to stand at $175.519 billion during the week ended December 15 as against $175.444 billion during the week ended December 8.
Foreign exchange earnings from tourism has risen by Rs 551 crore (Rs 5.51 billion) in June as compared to the same period last year, officials said.
After a dream run of almost one month, India's forex reserves dipped by $ 224 million to stand at $194.410 billion during the week ended March 9 as against $194.634 billion during the week ended March 2.
India's forex reserves increased by $940 million to stand at $166.482 billion during the week ended September 22 from $165.542 billion during the week ended September 15.
The government will move fast towards a more liberal forex regime in the backdrop of a record foreign exchange reserves of 68 billion dollar and fresh inflow of $500 million a week, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said.
Credit card payments for foreign travel will be brought under the purview of the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) of the Reserve Bank, to ensure that such expenses do not escape TCS (Tax Collection at Source). While moving the Finance Bill 2023 for consideration and passage in the Lok Sabha on Friday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Reserve Bank has been asked to look into ways to bring credit card payments on foreign tours under the LRS. "It has been represented that payments for foreign tours through a credit card are not being captured under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) and such payments escape tax collection at source (TCS)," she said.
With inflation remaining at elevated levels, central banks around the world, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), will kill excess demand in economy over the next six to eight months, sources in the know said. They also indicated that there could be a rate hike in June, when the inflation forecast for the current financial year would be raised. The RBI, the sources said, might announce more steps such as raising the limit on held-to-maturity (HTM) bonds to support government borrowings but might not come out with any further quantitative easing GSAP (Government Securities Acquisition Programme) measures.
India's forex reserves increased by $ 2.07 billion to stand at $157.262 billion during the week-ended April 21, 2006, as against $155.196 billion during the week ended April 14, 2006.
India's banking system is expected to remain unscathed from the troubles in Credit Suisse as it has a very small presence in the country, experts said. Although Credit Suisse is more relevant to India's financial system than Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), it has very limited operations, according to a report by Jefferies India. The Switzerland-based bank, the report said, "has less than Rs 20,000 crore in assets (12th among foreign banks), presence in the derivatives market and funded 60 per cent of assets from borrowings, of which 96 per cent are up to two months.
The forex reserves stood at $144.375 billion, a rise of $1.738 billion, during the week under review, according to Reserve Bank of India's weekly statistical supplement released in Mumbai on Saturday.
India's forex reserves declined by $4 million to stand at $142.17 billion during the week ended November 25 against $142.18 billion during the preceding week.
For the first time, the rupee declined to the low level of 80 against the US dollar in intra-day spot trading on Monday before ending the session 16 paise lower at 79.98 amid a surge in crude oil prices and unrelenting foreign fund outflows. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 79.76 against the greenback but lost ground to touch the psychological low mark of 80 against the American currency. The local unit clawed back some lost ground and closed at 79.98, registering a fall of 16 paise over its previous close.
India's foreign exchange reserves rose by $1.7 billion during the week ended September 2, 2005.
China is also the largest owner of the US Treasury securities.
The reserves had jumped $2.03 billion to $277.38 billion in the previous week.
While the fiscal year has just begun, any windfall surplus will be welcomed by the government as it bids to meet the fiscal deficit target of 5.9 per cent of GDP, amidst lack of clarity on exactly to what extent will recession in the West impact India's trade and tax collections.
India's foreign exchange reserves fell for the third week in a row by $544 million for the week ended July eight, 2005.
The country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $1.581 billion to stand at $611.149 billion for the week ended July 23, RBI data showed on Friday. The reserves had reached a lifetime high of $612.730 billion after rising by $835 million in the previous week ended July 16, 2021. In the reporting week, the drop in the reserves was mainly due to a fall in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves, as per weekly data by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Hit by the revaluation of international currencies, India's foreign exchange reserves dipped by a massive $1.16 billion for the week ended June 3, 2005.
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In the previous week, total reserves increased by $950.9 million to $313.536 billion.
The rupee depreciated further by 13 paise to hit a new life-time closing low of 82.30 against the US dollar on Friday as a firm American currency and risk-averse sentiment among investors weighed on the local unit. Moreover, a negative trend in domestic equities and elevated crude oil prices sapped investor appetite, forex traders said. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened at 82.19, then fell further to 82.43. It finally settled at an all-time low of 82.30 against the American currency, registering a decline of 13 paise over its previous close.
The probe is being conducted under various sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) after the central probe agency recently received a communication from the commerce ministry seeking "necessary action" against e-commerce players like Amazon and Flipkart pertaining to certain multi-brand retail businesses and an observation made by the Delhi High Court in relation to Amazon.
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