India's foreign exchange reserves dip by $4.112 billion

Kolkata: India's foreign exchange reserves dipped by $4.112 billion in the week to December 27 to $640.279 billion, data from the Reserve Bank of India showed.

This was the fourth straight weekly fall in reserves maintained with RBI while the reserves got depleted by over $60 billion since October in sync with the heavy foreign institutional investment outflow in the past two months.

One of the reasons behind the fall in reserves is the fact that the central bank is selling dollars from its stockpile to slow the pace of depreciation of the rupee, dealers in the foreign exchange market said. The local currency has been under pressure as overseas investors are taking dollars outside the country in search of safer havens.


The rupee ended Friday at a new closing low of 85.78 against the dollar, depreciating by 1.3% in a month.

The fall in reserves also reflects the depreciation of reserves held in other global currencies such as euro pound and yen as the dollar has strengthened globally.

The all-time high in forex reserves was at $704.885 billion seen on September 27. After that it started depleting week after week barring a few exceptions.