MUMBAI: With the rupee faring better after the crackdown on the punters, leading to lesser intervention by the central bank, the forex reserves rose by $2.362 billion to $703.308 billion in the week to April 17. But the currency’s gains in the past two weeks were capped on Friday with the rupee ending with its steepest weekly loss in over three years, closing at 94.23 on Friday, down 22 paise as the greenback continued to strengthen as the Iran war led energy prices spike lead to a crude to trade over $100 a barrel this week.
The rupee declined in all the five trading sessions to log its steepest week-on-week loss since September 2022, as worries over the fragility of a US-Iran ceasefire and disrupted energy flows sparked a renewed surge in oil prices. The rupee closed at 94.2475 on Friday, down 1.4% on the week.
The first two weeks of April saw the rupee strengthening though and traded in the 92.50-93 range after RBI imposed curbs on trade. But with most of the curbs being lifted the rupee is under pressure again.In the previous week too, the kitty had gained $3.825 billion, when the reserves rose to $700.946 billion, RBI said in its weekly statistical report Friday.
The reserves had touched an all-time high of $728.494 billion in the week to February 27. After that, they declined in the following weeks as the US-Iran conflict putting the rupee under tremendous pressure forcing the central bank to sell over $40 billion in March alone.
The rupee had touched an all-time low of 94.24 and has lost 4.5% in the month and a whopping 9.9% in FY26. In the latest week, foreign currency assets, the biggest part of the reserves, rose $1.481 billion to $557.463 billion. These assets are affected by changes in the value of the euro, pound and yen. Gold reserves also went up by $790 million to $122.133 billion, while special drawing rights rose by $78 million to $18.841 billion and the country’s reserve position with the International Monetary Fund also increased by $14 million to $4.87 billion.