MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India remained a net seller of the US dollar, selling a whopping $5.767 billion of the US currency on net basis in May on the spot market.
May has been the second consecutive month when RBI had net sold the greenback in the spot market.
Analysts speculate that the RBI has continued to sell dollars on the market to prop up the Indian currency, which has already fallen past its all-time low at the end of June. According to data released by the RBI, the central bank had sold a net $2.483 billion of the US currency in April.
In May 2017, the apex bank had been a net buyer adding $5.006 billion to its kitty, after it had purchased $7.020 billion of US dollars, and sold $2.014 billion. RBI has always maintained that its intervention in the foreign exchange market was to curb volatility in the rupee and not to target a level of the domestic currency.
In FY18, the apex bank had net purchased $33.689 billion from the spot market. It had bought $52.068 billion from the spot market, while selling $18,379 billion. For the entire 2016-17 financial year, RBI had bought $12.351 billion of dollars on a net basis. Meanwhile, in the forward dollar market, the outstanding net forward purchase at the end of May was $11.252 billion.