India’s foreign-exchange reserves increased $1.53 billion to $212.55 billion in the week ended June 22, suggesting the central bank bought dollars from the local currency market.

Foreign-currency assets increased by $1.53 billion to $205.18 billion, the Reserve Bank of India said in an e-mailed release in Mumbai on Friday.

The nation's reserves with the International Monetary Fund rose $2 million to $459 million in the week through June 22, while gold reserves were unchanged at $6.91 billion, the central bank said.

The change in foreign-currency assets is partly because of changes in the value of the dollar against the euro, yen and other currencies during the period, the central bank said.

India’s foreign-exchange reserves rose by $50.59 billion in the past year and by $13.4 billion in the financial year that began April 1, the bank said. The reserves comprise overseas currencies, gold and special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund.

Four-fold increase
Incidentally, the booming Indian economy coupled with rising rupee has led to more than four-fold increase in foreign exchange reserve to $47.5 billion during 2006-07 as compared to $10.1 billion a year ago.

External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) contributed maximum to the kitty as corporates borrowed a net of $16.1 billion from overseas debt market. However, during the previous year the net ECBs inflow was just $2.7 billion after including redemption of $5.5 billion India Millennium Deposits (IMDs) floated by State Bank of India in the year 2000.

The net foreign investment during the year declined marginally to $15.5 billion from $17.2 billion in the previous fiscal, the central bank said in its statement.