RBI net dollar buyer for third straight month in Feb, snaps up $825 mn

The central bank had turned net buyer of dollar for the first time in fiscal 2019 in December 2018, buying $607 mn

The Reserve Bank remained a net buyer of the US dollar for the thirdconsecutive month in February, when it bought $825 million from the spot market, according to the data from the central bank.

In the reporting month, the central bank bought $2.086 billion and sold $1.261 billion in the spot market as the rupee was under pressure.

The central bank had turned net buyer of dollar for the first time in fiscal 2019 in December 2018, buying $607 million.

In January 2019, the RBI had net purchased $293 million.

It had bought $1.025 billion from the spot market and sold $732 million.

In February 2018, the apex bank was also a net buyer of $1.665 billion purchasing $3.320 billion and selling $1.655 billion in the spot market.

In FY18, the apex bank had net purchased $33.689 billion from the spot market, taking its total dollar purchase to $52.068 billion, and sold only $18.379 billion, this helped the country for the first time scale a life-time peak of $426.028 billion for the week to April 13, 2018 in the foreign exchange reserves.

In the forward dollar market, the outstanding forward sales at end February was $4.372 billion, compared to a sale of $3.032 billion in January, according to the RBI data.