MUMBAI: India’s foreign exchange reserves halted a three-week losing streak and stood at $641.59 billion as of May 3, coming off seven-week lows, data from the central bank showed on Friday.

The reserves rose by $3.7 billion in the reporting week, the biggest gain in nearly two months. They had fallen by a total of $10.6 billion in the previous three weeks.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) intervenes in the foreign exchange market to curb excess volatility in the rupee.

Changes in foreign currency assets are caused by the RBI’s intervention as well as the appreciation or depreciation of foreign assets held in the reserves.

India’s foreign exchange reserves drop to seven-week low

Foreign exchange reserves also include India’s reserve tranche position in the International Monetary Fund.

For the week to which the foreign exchange data pertains, the rupee traded in a range of 83.34 to 83.5250 against the dollar and had logged marginal weekly losses.

The currency settled at 83.50 on Friday and declined nearly 0.1% week-on-week.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES (in million U.S. dollars)----------------------------------------------------                              May 03     April 26                               2024         2024----------------------------------------------------Foreign currency assets      564,161      559,701Gold                          54,880       55,533SDRs                          18,051       18,048Reserve Tranche Position       4,499        4,639----------------------------------------------------Total                        641,590      637,922----------------------------------------------------