Fca Push Forex Reserves Up By $177m

The ways and means advances (WMA) increased by Rs 3,009 crore to Rs 9,014 crore during the week ended on June 29, 2001, forcing the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to conduct a twin auction for Rs 7,000 crore on Saturday.

Money market analysts, however, feel that the WMA figure would have come down now (post auction) and there is no chance of another auction during this week.

Loans and advances to the state government, however, increased by Rs 344 crore during the week ended on June 29 to Rs 3,603 crore.

Foreign exchange reserves of the RBI rose by $177 million to $43.455 billion during the week ended June 22. The growth in forex reserves was fully on account of an accretion of $177 million to the foreign currency assets to $40.635 billion. Gold reserves and special drawing rights remained unchanged at $2.816 billion and $4 million, respectively.

Growth in credit offtake of the banking sector turned positive in the fortnight ended June 15, after going down in the previous fortnight. Credit provided by the banking industry went up by Rs 972 crore during the fortnight to Rs 5,16,665 crore, as compared with a fall of Rs 4,636 crore in the previous fortnight. Non-food credit went up by Rs 905 crore to Rs 4,67,867 crore and food credit increased by Rs 67 crore to Rs 48,798 crore.

Credit off-take, however, remained poor during the current fiscal so far. Till June 15, 2001, credit growth was 1.5 per cent as compared with 2.5 per cent during the corresponding period of the last fiscal.

Aggregate deposits of commercial banks fell marginally by Rs 56 crore to Rs 10,02,976 crore as compared with an increase of Rs 4,734 crore in the previous fortnight. Though demand deposits fell heavily by Rs 1,817 crore to Rs 1,40,079 crore, time deposits increased by Rs 1,761 crore to Rs 8,62,898 crore.

Along with the fall in the deposits, investments made by the banking sector dipped by Rs 6,556 crore to Rs 3,91,710 crore as compared with a growth of Rs 12,789 crore in the fortnight before. Investments in government securities went down by Rs 6,555 crore, while those in other approved securities fell marginally by Rs 1 crore.

Money supply measured in terms of M3 rose by 0.3 per cent (Rs 4,029 crore) to Rs 13,71,480 crore in the fortnight ended June 15 over the previous 15 days. Reserve money increased by 1.9 per cent (Rs 5,832 crore) to Rs 3,13,492 crore in the week ended June 29 over the previous week.