A first in 9 weeks: Foreign exchange reserves rise by $204 million

Analysts said there was an increase in the forex reserves, even as the RBI did not discontinue shielding the rupee from excessive volatility through sales of the dollar

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) foreign exchange reserves rose for the first time in nine weeks. According to the latest data, the forex reserves stood at $532.87 in the week ended October 7 -- $204 million higher than a week ago. Before this, the RBI’s foreign exchange reserves last witnessed an increase in the week ended July 29, by $2.3 billion.

But during the week under review, the RBI’s foreign currency assets registered a decline of $1.3 billion to $471.5 billion. The value of the central bank’s gold holdings increased by $1.4 billion to $38.9 billion, the data showed.