Forex reserves decline $828 m to $285 b.

MUMBAI: The country’s forex reserves dipped $828 million during the week ended September 10, largely on account of revaluation of non-dollar assets. The reserves are at $284.5 billion.

Foreign currency assets, comprising dollars, British pounds and euro, among others, dipped $815 million during the week. While special drawing rights, or SDRs — the reserve currency with the International Monetary Fund — and the reserve capital with the IMF, fell $9 million and $4 million, respectively.

The US dollar has remained soft for quite some time now, causing the yen and the euro to strengthen against the dollar. This has resulted in the bullion price touching a new high. These two currencies together account for a big chunk of India’s non-dollar assets. As a result, this has resulted in revaluation of non-dollar assets in reserves, said a treasury official with private bank requesting anonymity.

In other developments, the central government did not resort to any short-term borrowings from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Such borrowings are resorted to by the government to meet its daily revenue mismatches. These short-term borrowings are known as ways and means advances (WMA) — a facility under which governments borrow from the central bank to meet their daily revenue mismatches.

However, states had an outstanding borrowing, amounting to Rs 7 crore under the WMA facility as on September 10, down Rs 64 crore over the previous week’s levels.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com