India’s foreign exchange reserves declined by 8.7 billion dollars to 625.87 billion dollars in the week ending January 10, the latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed today. In the previous week, the country’s forex reserves had dropped by 5.6 billion dollars for the week ending January 3 and had settled at 634.58 billion dollars.
The decline was primarily attributed to a significant dip in foreign currency assets (FCA), a major component of the reserves, as per the Weekly Statistical Supplement released by RBI. The FCA fell by 9.4 billion dollars to over 536 billion dollars during the week. Conversely, gold reserves were up by 792 million dollars, totalling 67.88 billion dollars. The reserves have been declining for the last few weeks, and the drop has been attributed to revaluation along with forex market interventions by RBI to help reduce volatilities in the rupee.