Foreign exchange reserves have fallen by $243 million to $37,732 million for the week ended May 5 over the previous week, according to the weekly statistical supplement of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Of this, foreign currency assets account for a fall of $164 million whereas gold reserves have been depleted by $79 million. As on May 5, forex assets were at $34,829 million and gold reserves stood at $2,895 million.
Reserve money has fallen by 3.3 per cent or Rs 8,900 crore to Rs 2,63,439 crore. Currency in circulation has increased by 2.2 per cent or Rs 4,496 crore. The major drop occurred in banker's deposits with RBI which fell by 20.3 per cent or Rs 13,249 crore.
Money supply has dropped by Rs 148 crore for the fortnight ended April 21 over the previous fortnight from Rs 11,11,707 crore to Rs 11,46,211 crore.
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Commercial papers witnessed a fall in interest rates from the range of 9.58-12.25 per cent for the fortnight ended April 15 to 9.35-11.00 per cent for the fortnight ended April 30. However, outstanding levels were nearly the same at Rs 5,606 crore as compared with Rs 5,634 crore earlier.
According to the WSS document, net RBI credit to the government has also reduced for the week ended May 5 by 3.9 per cent or Rs 5,843 crore. Also, RBI credit to banks and commercial sector has seen a fall of 11.6 per cent to Rs 20,480 crore.
Weekly traded volume of corporate bonds at the wholesale market at National Stock Exchange (NSE) increased by nearly 500 per cent for the week ended May 6 compared with the previous week, from Rs 4.55 crore to Rs 24.06 crore. Activity in this market has usually been in the range of Rs 0.01 crore to Rs 0.04 crore on a weekly basis.
Loans and advances to the central government have decreased over the period April 28 to May 5, from Rs 8,579 crore to Rs 6,772 crore, though advances to state governments increased from Rs 1,821 crore to Rs 2,403 crore.
Both Nabard and scheduled state co-operative banks witnessed a drop in loans and advances from the RBI to Rs 4,766 crore and Rs 5,794 crore, respectively.
Bank credit has fallen by Rs 3,609 crore as on April 28 over the past month to Rs 4,46,496 crore. Of this fall non food credit has seen the major drop of Rs 5,933 crore over the previous month though on the other hand food credit has gone up by Rs 2,865 crore to Rs 27,790 crore. Balance with other banks of scheduled commercial banks in the same period has increased by Rs 139 crore to Rs 17,079 crore.