MUMBAI: The forex reserves continue to gain for the third consecutive week and jumped $4.529 billion to hit a four month high of $658.8 billion for the week to March 21, the weekly data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed on Friday.
The reserves have been rising as the apex bank has been buying dollars on one hand and on the other it has been selling less to defend the rupee, which has been stabilising in March after five months of bleeding. In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves had increased by $305 million to $654.271 billion and in the week before it had soared by $15.26 billion.
This is the third consecutive week of gains, which has been on a declining trend recently due to revaluation, along with forex market interventions by the RBI to help reduce volatilities in the rupee.
The forex reserves had hit an all-time high of $704.885 billion for the week to September 27, 2024.For the week ended March 21, foreign currency assets, a major component of the reserves, rose $1.669 billion to $558.856 billion.
Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the foreign exchange reserves. Gold reserves increased by $2.883 billion to $77.275 billion during the week, the RBI said, adding the special drawing rights declined by $22 million to $18.24 billion, the apex bank said.
Meanwhile, the central bank said that valuation gains amounted to $3.1 billion in April-December 2024, down from $11.1 billion in the same period in preceding year.
On a balance of payments basis, excluding valuation effects, forex reserves decreased by $13.8 billion during April-December 2024 as against an accretion of $32.9 billion during April-December 2023.Foreign exchange reserves in nominal terms, including valuation effects, fell by $10.7 billion during April-December 2024 as against an increase of $44 billion in the same period of the preceding year.