India adds $482 million to forex kitty

India's foreign exchange reserves increased by $484.2 million to reach $294.99 billion in the week ended 7 December on the back of increase in core currency assets, the Reserve Bank said on Friday.

The reserves had dipped $471.3 million at $294.51 billion in the previous reporting week. Foreign exchange reserves comprise a country's foreign currency assets (FCAs), gold reserves, special drawing rights (SDRs) and the reserve position in the Internatioal Monetary Fund.

FCAs were up $492.7 million at $260.505 billion for the week under review, the RBI said in its weekly statistical supplement.

FCAs, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation / depreciation of the non-US currencies such as the euro, pound and yen, held in the reserves.

The gold reserves remained unchanged at $27.80 billion during the week, the central bank said.

For the week under review, the special drawing rights (SDRs) were down by $8.9 million at $4.420 billion, while India's reserve position with the IMF grew $0.4 million to $2.265 billion, the RBI data showed.