India's holding of special drawing rights rises to $19.41 billion

The Reserve Bank said India's holding of IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) has gone up to SDR 13.66 billion which is equivalent to $19.41 billion as per exchange rate

The Reserve Bank on Wednesday said India's holding of IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) has gone up to SDR 13.66 billion which is equivalent to USD 19.41 billion as per exchange rate.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) makes the general SDR allocation to its members in proportion to their existing quotas in the multilateral lending agency.

SDR holding is significant as it is one of the components of the foreign exchange reserve of a country.

The IMF, according to RBI, made an allocation of SDR 12.57 billion (equivalent to around USD 17.86 billion at the latest exchange rate) to India on August 23.

The total SDR holdings of India, it said, "now stands at SDR 13.66 billion (equivalent to around USD 19.41 billion at the latest exchange rate) as on August 23, 2021".

"This increase in SDR holdings will be reflected in the Foreign Exchange Reserves (FER) data that shall be published for the week ended August 27, 2021," RBI said.

The Board of Governors of the IMF had approved a general allocation of about SDR 456 billion on August 2, 2021 (effective from August 23, 2021) of which the share of India is SDR 12.5 billion.

The SDR is an international reserve asset that was created to supplement IMF member countries' official reserves.

The value of the SDR is based on a basket of five currencies -- US dollar, euro, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen and British pound sterling.

It was created by the IMF in 1969.