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India's forex

reserves dip

further

BOMBAY: India's foreign currency assets have continued to fall since the first week of August, according to figures released here on Friday by the country's central bank.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its statistical unpdate for the week ended August 19, said India's foreign currency assets were $19.272 billion on August 11, down by 1.38 percent from $19.543 billion on August 4.

The foreign currency assets on August 4 were 1.16 percent lower than those at the end of the previous week, which was the last week of July.

The central bank did not give any reasons for the dip, but its figures showed that the foreign currency reserves on August 11 were 9.1 percent higher than the reserves a year earlier, when the figure was $17.664 billion.

India's present foreign currency assets are, however, considerably better than in 1991, when the country had only about $3.5 billion - barely enough for a couple of weeks' imports.

The country then faced a severe payments crisis, compelling New Delhi to begin radical pro-market economic reforms which reversed nearly four decades of quasi-socialist policies.

The RBI said India's total foreign exchange reserves, which include gold, SDRs and foreign currency assets were worth $23.82 billion on August 11, down 1.12 percent from $24.1 billion on August 4.-AFP