India's forex pile rises to six-month peak on sustained capital inflows

MUMBAI: India’s foreign exchange reserves climbed to $716.9 billion, their highest levels in about six months as of the week to August 14, data released on Friday showed, boosted by inflows under the central bank’s policy measures to strengthen India’s balance of payments.

The reserves jumped nearly $10 billion week-on-week, led by a $7.2 billion gain in the central bank’s foreign currency assets, while the value of gold holdings rose by $2.7 billion.

The central bank’s FX pile has been rising over the last seven weeks, which have witnessed an accretion of about $50 billion. The reserves are now within striking distance of a record high of $728.5 billion hit in February.

Measures to draw dollar inflows announced in June included discounted hedging facilities for overseas borrowings by state-run firms and banks and a free-of-cost hedging facility for banks to raise overseas FX deposits.

The central bank absorbs the inflows into its FX reserves via the discounted FX swaps.

Last Friday, the RBI announced it received nearly $57 billion worth of inflows under the measures by August 13, led by over $50 billion in FX deposits. The scale of inflows prompted the central bank to advance the closure of its deposit hedging facility by a month to August 31.

Changes in foreign currency assets, expressed in dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of other currencies held in reserves.

The central bank’s frequent interventions in the foreign exchange market to defend the rupee have likely offset the impact of some of the overseas dollar inflows, bankers said.

Foreign exchange reserves include India’s Reserve Tranche position in the International Monetary Fund.