6.4.19

Forex Kitty Soars to $412 b

The maiden dollar-rupee swap conducted by the central bank last week helped the country's foreign exchange reserves swell by a healthy $5.237 billion to $411.905 billion in the week to March 29.

In the previous week, the reserves had increased by $1.029 billion to $406.667 billion.

Foreign currency assets, a major component of the overall reserves, swelled by $5.248 billion to $384.053 billion in the reporting week. Expressed in dollars, foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation/depreciation of non-US currencies like the euro, pound and the yen held in the reserves.

In a bid to infuse liquidity into the system, the RBI had on March 26 conducted a $5 billion dollar-rupee swap auction, which received bids for over $16 billion. Following the huge response, the central bank announced another $5 billion swap auction to be held on April 23 for a three-year tenor.

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