“Overall, our external sector remains resilient. We are confident of meeting our external financing requirements comfortably,” he said.
The following are the top five weeks in which the forex surged:
The biggest weekly rally was in the week to August 27, 2021 when the reserves added $16.663 billion to take the total to $633.558 billion, mainly due to an increase in the special drawing rights (SDRs), after the International Monetary Fund allocated 12.57 billion (around $17.86 billion) worth of SDRs to India on August 23, 2021.
The second biggest weekly addition was for the week to March 7, 2025 when the reserves added $15.3 billion, taking the total stockpile to $654 billion, bolstered by the Reserve Bank’s $10-billion forex swap operations conducted in February to ease liquidity. At the time, it was the highest weekly gain recorded since.
The third largest was recorded for the week to January 30, 2026 when the reserves hit the highest ever at $723.8 billion after the value of the 810 tonne gold reserves rose by a whopping $14.36 billion to $137.683 billion when gold crossed $5600 an ounce mark.
The fourth largest weekly addition was for the week to January 16, 2026 when the reserves jumped by $14.17 billion to take the total reserves to neat record of $701.36 billion, largely driven by a sharp increase in gold holdings, which rose by $4.62 billion due to surging global prices, and a $9.65 billion jump in foreign currency assets.
The fifth largest addition was in the week to September 27, 2024, when $12.5 billion was added to the kitty, taking the overall forex stockpile for the first time past the $700 billion mark to close at $704.89 billion.
The reserves had been falling as the rupee was under intense pressure since August when the US slapped 50% duty on Indian shipments. Also, foreigners had taken out $19 billion in 2025 and pulled out close to $4 billion in the first 30 days of 2026 leading to more pressure on the rupee that had lost 4.9% last year and more than 2.7% this year so far.
Since the September 27, 2024 peak of $704.9 billion, the reserves had crossed the $700-billion-mark thrice but did not cross the first record.
