MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s foreign exchange reserves resumed their losing streak to fall to $583.53 billion as of Oct. 20, compared with $585.90 billion a week earlier, data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed on Friday.
Reserves have dropped sharply in recent weeks, down by $14.2 billion in five weeks to Oct. 6, a five-month low. However, they rose by $1.16 billion in the week to Oct. 13.
The RBI intervenes in both the spot and forwards markets to prevent runaway moves in the rupee.
“We do not have a specific exchange rate in mind with regard to our currency market intervention,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das reiterated in a recent session with Krishna Srinivasan, Director, Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund.
“Our approach and our focus, our emphasis is to prevent excessive volatility of the exchange rate,” he added.
Das also called on the United States and other countries and organisations to review their use of “labelling like watch lists”.
Changes in foreign currency assets are caused by the RBI’s intervention as well as the appreciation or depreciation of foreign assets held in the reserves.
Foreign exchange reserves also include India’s reserve tranche position in the IMF.
The rupee traded in a 83.0375-83.2850 range in the week ending Oct. 20. On Friday, the currency settled at 83.2450. [INR/]
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES (in million U.S. dollars)
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Oct 20 Oct 13
2023 2023
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Foreign currency assets 515,202 519,351
Gold 45,425 43,575
SDRs 17,925 17,995
Reserve Tranche Position 4,980 4,975
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Total 583,532 585,895
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Source text: (https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx)
(This story has been refiled to fix the table formatting)
(Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
