New Delhi: India’s foreign exchange reserves witnessed a big decline in the week ending May 24, 2024, as the total reserves fell $2.03 billion to $646.67 billion, according to RBI’s weekly data. In the week of May 17, India’s forex reserves had jumped $4.55 billion to an all-time high of $648.7 billion.
Forex reserves breakdown
Foreign exchange reserves declined by $2.03 billion owing to fluctuations in non-US currency reserves. These currencies include the euro, the UK sterling pound and the Japanese Yen.
India’s gold reserves also declined $482 million to $57.61 billion in the week of May 24.
Special drawing rights, a currency used with the IMF was down $33 million to $18.1 billion. Reserve deposits with the IMF slipped $1 million to $4.33 billion.
RBI transfers 100 tonnes of gold
The Reserve Bank of India transferred nearly 100 tonnes of gold from the Bank of London to India recently, it said in its annual report. In 199, the RBI transferred a significant portion of gold reserves to pledge the same after a foreign exchange crisis. India’s reserves have surged 27.46 tonnes to 822 tonnes in FY24. The recent gold transfer has boosted total locally stored reserves to 408 tonnes in India. The notes issued in FY24 were backed by 308 tonnes of gold, the central bank said. Another 100.28 tonnes of gold was stored locally as banking department property. The RBI stores 413.79 tonnes of gold abroad.
RBI’s balance sheet is larger than Pakistan’s economy
The Reserve Bank of India in its annual report said that its balance sheet expanded to $844.76 billion, or Rs 70.85 lakh crore, up 11 per cent from Rs 63.44 lakh crore in the year-ago period. The size of Pakistan’s GDP is $338.24 billion. This shows that the size of RBI’s balance sheet is 2.5X the GDP of Pakistan. The central bank transferred a record Rs 2.1 lakh crore surplus to the Indian government even after provisioning 6.5 per cent for contingency expenses for the financial year 2023-24.
Forex Reserves: India’s foreign exchange reserves were down $2.03 billion in the week of May 24, 2024, according to the RBI’s weekly statistical supplement. While the non-US dollar currency reserves were down owing to valuation change, gold reserves also declined by $57.61 billion, during the week. Biz News Business News – Personal Finance News, Share Market News, BSE/NSE News, Stock Exchange News Today
