The Hindu Business Line : Forex reserves up $54 m

THE country's forex reserves registered a marginal increase of $ 54 million to move up to $ 117.576 billion for the week ended September 3 after registering a decline for the previous three consecutive weeks, the RBI's Weekly Statistical Supplement said.

Forex reserves stood at $117.522 billion at the end of the previous week.

Analysts ascribe the accretion to revaluation in the RBI's basket of currencies. Revaluation of gold reserves also contributed to the increase in forex reserves. They added that during this week some amount of foreign inflows was absorbed by the central bank, which stemmed decline in the reserves.

Foreign currency assets moved up by $35 million to $112.136 billion against $112.101 billion in the previous week. Gold position showed an increment of $17 million as it touched $4,140 million against $4,123 million for preceding week. Reserve position in the IMF also moved slightly upward by $2 million to $1,299 million against $1,297 million last week.

"Sentiment in the forex market is changing in favour of an appreciating rupee as market participants expect foreign inflows to increase.

The rupee hovered around 46.30 to 46.37 per dollar during the week, which led to comparatively lesser intervention by the central bank to support the domestic currency," said a treasury head with a large public sector bank.

The currency edged up further during the week ending September 10 to 46.2650/2750. The rupee had breached the 46.30 closing levels after a fortnight, dealers said.

As per the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) data, FII investments worth $62 million were made during the week.

Amount parked in the repos with the central bank was at Rs 41,570 crore as on September 3.