Thin trades in forex mart

Trade in dollar against the rupee was scanty in small centres on Thursday because the key centre, Mumbai, was closed for the Gudi Padva festival.

Government bonds and call money market were closed for the holiday. The spot rupee was quoted quite wide in early trade due to absence of big players. Later, it stabilised around its previous close.

The spot rupee was quoted at 44.70-44.72 a dollar compared with Wednesday's 44.70, while the forward rates hardly moved over the previous close.

The Clearing Corporation of India's settlement system for foreign exchange deals-FX Clear-was also closed on Thursday.

However, CCIL's cross currency settlements, Continuous Linked System, was on but this too is unlikely to witness many deals.

Although other centres for foreign exchange trade were working, they may not be able to do "cash" deals in dollar or rupee because the RBI's Mumbai office and CCIL services were closed on Thursday.