During the week to January 23, foreign currency assets, a major component of the reserves, jumped by $ 2.367 billion to $ 562.885 billion, the data released by the central bank showed.
Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets include the effects of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units, such as the euro, pound, and yen, held in the foreign exchange reserves.
Value of the gold reserves jumped by $ 5.635 billion to $123.088 billion during the week, the RBI said Friday.
The Special Drawing Rights were up by $ 33 million to $18.737 billion, the apex bank said.
The reserve position with the IMF was also up by $18 million to $4.703 billion in the reporting week, according to the apex bank’s data.
Since the September 27, 2024 peak of $704.9 billion the reserves had crossed the $700-billion-mark twice but did not cross the first record.
From a weekly addition point of view, the biggest weekly addition was on 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 rally 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.
