India's forex kitty jumped by $10.47 billion to $636.09 billion for the week ended March 8, the Reserve Bank said on Friday. In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves had risen by $6.55 billion to $625.63 billion. In October 2021, the country's forex kitty had reached an all-time high of $645 billion.
The Indian government has expressed its disagreement with the IMF staff's 'baseline' assumption that the 50 per cent US tariffs on its goods exports 'would remain in place indefinitely', based on which the staff pegged the country's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent this year, and pared its 2026-27 projection by 20 basis points to 6.2 per cent.
According to Subbarao, the lower your reserves dip, the more vulnerable you become.
Dropping for the second straight week, India's foreign exchange reserves plummeted by a hefty $3.20 billion at $284.65 billion on a heavy decline in the currency assets, the Reserve Bank said.
Here's what Indian investors diversifying into equities, ETFs, and real estate abroad to manage risk, returns, and currency exposure must watch out for.
The rupee has depreciated 9.7 per cent against the US dollar over a year and with the RBI stemming the rupee's weakness through dollar sales, its reserves have dropped to their lowest levels since October, 2020. The fall in reserves has widespread implications.
During the reporting week, gold reserves increased marginally by $87 million to $26.796 billion.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) $10 billion US dollar-rupee buy-sell swap auction for three years received bids worth $16.23 billion on Friday, reflecting robust demand amid persistent liquidity deficit in the banking system. This was the second swap auction by the central bank after it infused $5 billion via six month-swap on January 31.
'Investors can consider staying invested in long duration products as there is a possibility of rate cuts in the near term.' Positive macros - lower inflation, high forex reserves and favourable demand-supply dynamics for government bonds - make a strong case for rate cuts from December, says Devang Shah, head of fixed income, Axis Mutual Fund. In an interview with Abhishek Kumar in Mumbai, Shah says this view may not hold true if commodity prices go up sharply.
India's foreign exchange reserves increased $2.95 billion to $645.58 billion for the week ended March 29, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Friday. This is the sixth consecutive week of a jump in overall reserves. The kitty had increased $140 million to $642.63 billion in the previous reporting week.
All components showed improvement with the exception of FDI and banking capital in the first half of 2010-11.
During the week, gold reserves declined by $443 million to $26.910 billion.
A combination of factors, including heavy investments in US Treasury bonds and dollar sales at a healthy profit, facilitated the Indian central bank in transferring a record surplus of Rs 2.11 trillion to the government for 2023-24 (FY24). The RBI's dollar purchases increased in FY24, supported by robust capital inflows endorsing the economy's health.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked fintech firms to focus on risk management at a time when criminals are using AI to mimic voices, clone identities and create lifelike videos to manipulate people.
Foreign exchange reserve, often taken as a yardstick to gauge a country's financial strength, are the foreign currency deposits and bonds held by central banks or monetary authorities (it is Reserve Bank in case of India).
Trading in the forex market was impacted on Friday as one of the platforms suffered an outage. One of the electronic trading platforms suffered an outage around midday during the trading hours due to which players were unable to log into the system, according to sources. Orders dried up as a result of this, they said, adding that this created a heightened uncertainty in the forex market, causing excess volatility in the Indian rupee, which was avoidable.
Forex reserves include a country's gold holdings and convertible foreign currencies held in its banks, including special drawing rights and exchange reserve balances, with the International Monetary Fund.
India is among the top 10 nations in terms of foreign exchange reserves.
The overall reserves had jumped by $7.2 billion to $595.98 billion for the previous reporting week. It can be noted that in October 2021, the country's forex kitty had reached an all-time high of $645 billion.
The recent depreciation of the rupee along with sharp fall in the country's foreign exchange (FX) reserves has sparked a debate whether stability of the exchange rate is necessary and desirable. The rupee was one of the least volatile currencies among peers for almost two years before the current downward pressure started in September after the US Federal Reserve lowered interest rate.
The rising price of the precious metal has helped the central bank increase overall forex reserves despite currency reserves not rising, and sometimes even falling.
In the swap auction conducted on April 23, the Reserve Bank had received bids worth $ 18.65 billion against $ 5 billion on offer.
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.
'Many global investors have been overweight on dollar assets, so some diversification or hedging is naturally expected.'
'If it doesn't, it will continue with measures to infuse liquidity, signalling a new cycle,' predicts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The reserves had touched a life-time high of $426.028 billion in the week to April 13, 2018.
India's forex kitty rose by $12.80 billion to $572.80 billion in the week ended March 17, the Reserve Bank said on Friday. In the previous reporting week, the reserves had dropped by $2.39 billion to a three-month low of $560.00 billion. It can be noted that in October 2021, the country's forex kitty had reached an all-time high of $645 billion.
India's forex reserves rose for the fifth consecutive week, adding $4.41 billion to $295.71 billion in the week ended December 6 on account of a rise in foreign currency assets, the Reserve Bank said.
The reserves had touched an all-time high of $367.16 billion previously
The forex kitty swelled for the fifth week in a row during the week ended December 6 to $295.71 billion, adding $4.41 billion. Between August 30 and December 6, the reserves have increased by close to $17 billion.
The Reserve Bank has told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the objective of frequent interventions in the forex market is to curb excessive volatility, dismissing the Fund's rationale for reclassifying India's exchange rate regime. The IMF, following the Article IV consultation with the Indian authorities, reclassified the status of the exchange rate regime to "stabilised arrangement" from "floating" for period between December 2022 to October 2023. India's Executive Director at IMF K V Subramanian and Senior Advisors Sanjay Kumar Hansda and Anand Singh questioned the selection period adopted by the Fund for analysis and also reclassification of the country's exchange rate regime.
The highlights of RBI's bi-monthly monetary policy announced by Governor Shaktikanta Das:
India's foreign exchange reserves dropped $325 million to $560.942 billion as of February 24, making it the fourth consecutive week of decline in the kitty, the Reserve Bank of India said on Friday. In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves had declined $5.68 billion to $561.267 billion. In October 2021, the forex kitty reached an all-time high of $645 billion.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the trading hours for the interbank call money market from July 1, and that of repo and tri-party repo markets from August 1. Market participants said the decision is intended to help reduce the large Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) balances held by banks with the RBI, thereby addressing liquidity mismatches.
While this will incur a revenue loss amounting to 0.2 per cent of GDP, it will provide a strong boost to consumer sentiment and spending, points out Rajani Sinha.
