New Delhi: India’s foreign exchange reserves during the week that ended on December 9 rose by USD 2.91 billion to USD 564.07 billion, the Reserve Bank of India data showed. Notably, this is the fifth consecutive week of India’s rising foreign exchange reserves.
During the week that ended December 2, the country’s forex reserves were at USD 561.16 billion, earlier data showed. According to RBI’s latest data, India’s foreign currency assets, which are the biggest component of the forex reserves, rose by USD 3.14 billion to USD 500.12 billion.
However, gold reserves during the latest week declined by USD 296 million to USD 40.729 billion. At the start of 2022, the overall forex reserves were at USD 633.61 billion. Barring the past five odd weeks, the forex reserves have been intermittently falling for months now largely because of RBI’s intervention in the market to defend the depreciating rupee against a surging US dollar.
Overall, India’s forex reserves had declined sharply ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February when imports of energy and other commodities got costlier globally, which necessitated the higher requirement of reserves for trade settlement.