RBI's gold reserves rise to 794.64 tonne at March-end 2023

The Reserve Bank's gold reserves increased by 34.22 tonne year-on-year to reach 794.64 tonne at March-end 2023, showed central bank data on Monday.

The Reserve Bank held 760.42 metric tonnes of gold (including gold deposits of 11.08 metric tonnes) at the March-end of 2022.

"As at end-March 2023, the Reserve Bank held 794.64 metric tonne of gold (including gold deposits of 56.32 metric tonne)," the central bank said in its Half Yearly Report on Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves: October 2022 - March 2023.

While 437.22 tonne of gold is held overseas in safe custody with the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), 301.10 tonne of gold is held domestically.

In value terms (USD), the share of gold in the total foreign exchange reserves increased from about 7.06 per cent as of September-end 2022 to about 7.81 per cent as of March-end 2023, the report said.

During the half-year period, reserves increased from $532.66 billion as of September-end 2022 to $578.45 billion as of March-end 2023.

Forex reserves comprise foreign currency assets, gold, special drawing rights and reserve tranche position in the International Monetary Fund.

Although both the US dollar and Euro are intervention currencies and the Foreign Currency Assets (FCA) are maintained in major currencies, the foreign exchange reserves are denominated and expressed in the US dollar terms.

Movements in the FCA occur mainly on account of the purchase and sale of foreign exchange by the RBI, income arising out of the deployment of the foreign exchange reserves, external aid receipts of the central government and changes on account of revaluation of the assets.

As of March-end 2023, out of the total FCA of $509.69 billion, $411.65 billion was invested in securities, $75.51 billion was deposited with other central banks and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), and the balance of $22.52 billion comprised deposits with commercial banks overseas.