Foreign exchange reserves as on March 25 fell by $387.50 million from a week ago to $355.559 billion, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India.
Foreign currency assets (FCA), which forms a key component of the reserves, fell by $358.10 million from the previous week to $332.146 billion.
FCA are maintained in major currencies like US dollar, euro, pound sterling, yen, etc. However, the foreign exchange reserves are denominated and expressed in US dollar only.
The movements in the FCA occur mainly on account of purchase and sale of foreign exchange by the RBI in the foreign exchange market in India, income arising out of the deployment of the foreign exchange reserves, external aid receipts of the central government and revaluation of the assets.
Gold reserves remained unchanged at $19.325 billion. Special drawing rights (SDR) from the International Monetary Fund fell by $10.7 million from the
previous week to $1.488 billion. SDR is an international reserve asset created by IMF and allocated to its members
in proportion of the members’ quota at IMF.
The country’s reserve position in the IMF stood at $2.599 billion as on March 18, down $18.7 million from the previous week.
In the week-ended March 18, India’s forex reserves rose to a record high of $355.947 billion — up $2.539 billion from the previous week.
