Forex reserves surge to new high of $409.4 billion

Kolkata: India's foreign exchange reserves scaled a new peak at $409.367 billion with Reserve Bank of India adding $4.445 billion in the kitty in the week ending December 29.

While the central bank does not cite reasons behind the weekly rise and fall of reserves, forex dealers said that the weekly jump was largely due to changes in valuation of reserves held in other global currencies such as pound sterling, euro and Japanese yen.

Foreign currency assets, which captures the valuation changes, rose $4.424 billion in the week under review to $385.104 billion.


Rise in India's forex reserves over the last one year has attracted attention from major global economies as RBI bought dollars aggressively to sterilise the heavy dollar flow. The US Treasury has, in particular, shown apprehension on whether India manipulated the exchange rate to gain competitive advantage in exports.