Forex Reserves Pared By $102 Million

Foreign exchange reserves fell by $102 million this week to $37,630 million as on May 12, 2000, according to the weekly statistical supplement issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Saturday.

The fall in forex reserves was wholly accounted for by a decline in foreign currency assets to $34.727 billion. This trend of reserves falling after a period of sustained increase has been continuing since the past couple of weeks.

Analysts said the reserves have been used to stabilise the rupee-dollar rate after recent bouts of volatility in the foreign exchange markets.

Aggregate deposits in the banking system expanded to Rs 8,35,148 crore _ recording a year-on-year (YOY) increase of 16.3 per cent as on May 5, 2000, compared with an increase of 16 per cent for the previous fortnight.

 

Of the components of aggregate deposits, demand deposits stood a touch lower at Rs 1,29,286 crore compared with Rs 1,30,487 crore during the last fortnight, while time deposits were nearly static at Rs 7,05,862 crore compared with Rs 7,05,308 crore.

Bank credit was little changed in YOY terms, rising from 20.3 percent to 20.9 per cent. It currently stands at Rs 4,45,238 crore compared with Rs 4,46,496 crore previously.

Of the components of bank credit, food credit stands at Rs 29,057 crore compared with Rs 27,790 crore earlier, while non-food credit was at Rs 4,16,181 crore compared with Rs 4,18,706 crore.

Cash-deposit ratio has fallen from 8.11 to 6.55 as on May 5, while credit-deposit ratio was marginally lower at 53.31 from 53.42. The incremental credit-deposit ratio has declined from 47.86 to 44.13.

Reserve money in YOY terms rose from 1.6 per cent last week to 3.5 per cent as on May 12. In absolute terms, it stood at Rs 2,75,822 crore compared with Rs 2,63,439 crore. Bankers deposits with the RBI registered a decline of 11.7 per cent in YOY terms as on May 12, compared with a decline of 28.9 per cent the previous week.

Loans and advances to the central government rose by Rs 3,875 crore to Rs 10,647 crore, while advances to state governments went up Rs 302 crore to Rs 2,705 crore.

The rates on interest outstanding on issues of commercial paper have spiralled lower from a range of 9.58 to 12.25 per cent as on April 15 to 9.35-11 per cent as on April 30. Total outstanding volume of commercial paper declined from Rs 5,634 crore to Rs 5,606 crore.