Huge rise in forex reserves

Mumbai, Apr 9: Rupee ended weaker by six to seven paise at 44.6850/6950 per US Dollar, as compared to earlier week's close at 44.62/63.

However, the Rupee will be boosted by the Foreign Exchange (Forex) reserves going up for the 11th week in a row by US dollar 2.96 billion to record USD 151.662 billion for the week ended on March 31 as per the data released by Reserve Bank of India.

The foreign fund inflow in the Indian equity market was still quite robust at Rs 924.30 crore between Monday and Wednesday with Rs 314 crore on Wednesday alone, as per stock market regulator SEBI.

However, Friday figures, which will be released on Monday, may be negative, as the foreign institutional investors(FIIs) said to have booked profit when the BSE Sensex fell 365 points in intra-day trade.

Also, the crude oil prices which have been on the rise touching a high of USD 68 per barrel in the global markets will affect rupee's valuation amidst demands for more dollar to import the crude oil.

Moreover, last week the Indian basket of crude oil price touched a new high of USD 64 per barrel.

In the year 2005-06, the oil import bill was of USD 43 billion out of total import bill of USD 140 billion as per the Foreign Trade Policy announcements made on Commerce Minister Kamal Nath on Friday.

UNI