India’s Forex Reserves Rise for Third Week In a Row; Cross $406 Billion Mark

India's forex reserves continued to surge for the third continuous week to 22 March 2019, as the overall tally reached $406.667 billion, according to the Reserve Bank of India, says a Financial Express report.

Reserves had increased by $3.6 billion to $405.6 billion in the previous reporting week driven by an increase in foreign currency assets. For the gone by reporting week, foreign currency assets (major component of overall reserves) increased by $1.031 billion to $378.805 billion, the RBI said on Friday.

Apart from foreign currency assets, a major component of the reserves are also accounted for by the amount of gold held by the RBI. Gold reserves remained unchanged at $23.408 billion in the bygone week, according to data from the central bank.

Expressed in dollars terms, foreign reserves include all non-dollar currencies adjusted for the effect of appreciation/depreciation - like the euro, pound and the yen.

The reserves had touched a lifetime high of $426.028 billion in the week to 13 April 2018. Since then, the reserve has been dwindling as the rupee came under pressure owing to the cumulative effects of rising crude prices, strengthening dollar and resultant weakening rupee. But since March this year, it has been increasing on the back of rising foreign investors' play in domestic equities.