Foreign reserve grows to $412 billion from $5.23 billion

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, RBI data showed Friday. 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 Reserve Bank 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 round of $5 billion swap auction to be held on April 23 for a three-year tenor.

The forex reserves had touched a life-time high of $426.028 billion in the week to April 13, 2018. Since then, it has been on a slide and is now down by around $14 billion.

Gold reserves remained unchanged at $23.408 billion in the reporting week, according to data from the central bank.

The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dipped by $3.6 million to $1.456 billion.

The country’s reserve position with the fund too decreased by $7.4 million to $2.986 billion, the apex bank said.