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Journalism of Courage
Forex reserves up by 53 m
MUMBAI: The country8217;s foreign-exchange reserves, in a reversal of trend, shot up by 53 million during the week immediately after the series of nuclear blasts at Pokharan and the subseqent turmoil in the forex market.
The marginal rise in forex reserves is significant as during the previous two weeks reserves had dipped by over 800 million. This was largely attributed to net foreign institutional investor outflow and the State Bank of India8217;s sale of dollar to defend the rupee.
Since the net FIIs inflow was negative in April, the rise in forex reserves could be attributed to some inflow on account of foreign direct investment FDI, analysts said. 8220;This is a happy omen. The fundamentals of the economy are strong and there is nothing to worry,quot; an analyst with a leading brokerage said. The 0.18 per cent increase in foreign exchange reserves 53 million took place during the week between May 15 and May 22. India conducted the first series of blasts on May 11 andfollowed it up by another on May 13 triggering a fall in the rupee. The spot rupee has depreciated over 4 per cent since the nuclears tests. The forex reserves rose to 28.71 billion on May 22 from 28.66 billion on May 15.
MUMBAI: Syndicate Bank has posted a net profit of Rs 82.66 crore during 1997-98 as compared to Rs 66.96 crore in the previous fiscal registering an increase of 23.5 per cent.
According to a press release issued by the bank, the operating profit went up to Rs 135.40 crore from Rs 98.96 crore in 1996-97 recording an increase of 37 per cent. The bank is proposing to increase the operating profit to Rs 225 crore during the current year.
The capital adequacy ratio of the bank stood at 10.5 per cent as on March 31, 1998, against the RBI stipulation of 8 per cent. The bank, says the press release, has therefore qualified to be a quot;strong bankquot; and will have the quot;autonomy quot; status as per the government guidelines.
