Despite a reported selling of the dollars in the market, India's forex reserves rose by $266 million to $316.763 billion for the week ended September 16, according to the data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today.
The reserves had fallen by a massive $4.29 billion to $316.50 billion in the previous reporting week.
The increase in reserves can be attributed to the steady rise of the American greenback against all leading currencies since the past one month or so. The rupee lost nearly 8% in August and over 5% in September.
Today the rupee closed at 49.43, a gain of 14 paise over yesterday, after sniffing at the 50-mark as the lingering Eurozone crisis further pushed up the dollar demand globally.
The rise in reserves comes even after the reported intervention by the central bank in the forex market during the reporting week (precisely on September 14) to arrest the steep fall of the rupee by selling dollars in the market. The move was forced after the local currency breached the sensitive 48-level against the dollar last Wednesday.
Foreign currency assets (FCAs), the biggest component of the reserves, were up by $202 million at $280.903 billion for the reporting period, according to the RBI data.
FCAs, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of the non-US currencies such as the euro, pound and yen, held in the reserves.
Gold reserves remained unchanged at 28.319 billion. Both the special drawing rights (SDRs) and reserve position in the IMF were up for the week, the central bank said.
SDRs were up $2 million to $4.549 billion while India's reserve position in the IMF rose $62 million to $2.992 billion, the data showed.
