The Hindu Business Line : Forex reserves down $142 m

THE country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $142 million for the week ended June 4.The drop in the reserves is largely on account of revaluation of gold reserves held by the RBI , which depleted by $217 million, said a foreign exchange analyst.

The foreign exchange reserves stood at $119.678 billion as compared to $119.820 billion for the week ended May 28. The foreign currency assets stood at $114.403 billion as against $114.326 billion for the past week. The Special Drawing Rights position remained stable at $2 million.

The gold position for the week stood at $3.974 billion as compared to the past week's $4.191 billion. Gold prices have shown a decline in the Indian and overseas market for the period.

There was a marginal decline of $2 million in the reserve position of the RBI with the IMF, which stood at $ 1.299 billion. A $77-million accretion in the foreign currency asset basket contained the fall in reserves to a large extent.

The reserve position showed significant fluctuations for the past few weeks. For the week ended May 14, the inflow was merely $49 million, the following week it was a drop of $56 million, and for the week ended May 28 the reserves registered an increase of $1.248 billion.

Mr P. Mukherji, Senior Vice-President, Treasury, UTI Bank Ltd, said, ``The reserves decline could possibly be on account of gold reserves' revaluation. The reserve position has been showing a sideway movement for the past few weeks and does not indicate a clear trend.''

For the week ended June 4, foreign institutional investors remained net buyers in the domestic stock market.

For the week ended June 11, rupee stood at 45.1550/1650 against the dollar weakening by about 11 paise from the week's opening of 45.0425/05.