Weak rupee: India's forex reserves rising on NRI remittances.

KOLKATA: India's foreign exchange reserves rose for the second straight week, possibly since non resident Indians are pouring in greenback to take advantage of the weak rupee.

Forex reserves rose nearly $3 billion in the last two weeks to October 11, according to Reserve Bank of India latest statistics. However, RBI does not cite any reason for the rise in reserves. The reserves now stands at $279.240 billion.

"We have seen sizeable growth in NRI deposits," Indian Overseas Bank chairman and managing director M Narendra told ET.

Overseas Indians, especially people from the Gulf region, are seen rushing to park their savings in non-resident external rupee account to cash in the rupee depreciation.

At current rate, they get Rs 61.33 per dollar, about 15% more than what they used to get seven months back.

For the last few week, the rupee was hovering in a narrow 61-62 a dollar band.

Reserves in rupee terms rose Rs 29 billion to Rs 17,113 billion.

Foreign currency rose $1.527 billion to $250.852 billion, RBI said in its weekly report.

Foreign currency assets expressed in dollar terms include the effect of appre-ciation or depreciation of non-US currencies such as euro, pound and yen held in the reserves.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com