The country’s foreign exchange reserves declined by $4.5 billion to $528.36 billion in the week ended October 14, RBI data showed. In the previous week ended October 7, the reserves rose to $532.86 billion after an accretion of $204 million. During the reporting quarter, the fall in the forex reserves was mainly on account of a decline in foreign currency assets (FCA) and gold reserves, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) weekly data showed on Friday. While FCA, which is a major component of the overall forex reserves, declined by $2.82 billion to $468.66 billion, gold reserves dipped by $1.5 billion to $37.45 billion. So far, in the current financial year, the forex reserves have declined by $78.108 billion. The Reserve Bank’ s Governor Shaktikanta Das, last month, had said that around two-thirds of the decline in reserves in the current fiscal is due to valuation changes arising from an appreciating US dollar and higher US bond yields. However, the fall in the reserves is also due to RBI’s intervention in the foreign exchange market to curb the volatility in rupee, which has depreciated by close to 10 per cent between April 4 and October 21, 2022.
