India's forex reserves cross USD 150 bn first time ever

Mumbai, Apr 7 (UNI) India's Foreign Exchange Reserves (Forex) crossed USD 150 billion mark first time ever during the week ended on March 31 on the back of robust flows of foreign funds in the Indian equity markets.

Forex reserves went up for the 11th week in a row by US dollar 2.960 billion to record USD 151.662 billion for the week ended on March 31, according to the weekly supplement released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The reserves had gone up by US dollar 2.503 billion to USD 148.662 billion for the week ended on March 24.

Foreign currency assets rose by USD 2.949 billion to USD 145.108 billion, RBI said.

Gold reserves went up by eight millon US dollar at USD 5.755 billion, while that of SDRs were unchanged at Rs 12 crore.

The reserve tranche position with the IMF decreased by USD three million to USD 753 million.

Loans and advances of the Central government remained nil for the week ended on April 1. The loans and advances of the State governments decreased by Rs 86 crore during the week ended on March 31 to Rs 507 crore for the week ended on April 1 The aggregate deposits with the scheduled commercial banks were up by Rs 9,549 crore to Rs 20,03,775 crore for the fortnight ending on March 17, the Central bank said.

The bank credits rose up by Rs 20,706 crore to Rs 14,42,591 crore during the same period.

The food credit was up by Rs 377 crore to Rs 41,825 crore and non-food credit was up by Rs 22,329 crore to Rs 14,00,766 crore.

Meanwhile, the rupee ended this weaker by six to seven paise at 44.6850/6950 per USD this week, as compared to last week's close at 44.62/63.

UNI RRP KU SKB1915