India’s foreign exchange reserve reaches a new all-time high of 493.48 billion US dollars

India’s foreign exchange reserves surged by 3.43 billion dollars to reach a fresh all-time high of 493.48 billion dollars in the week ended on  29 May 2020  as the government has launched a massive campaign to reboot the Indian economy stressed due to the lockdown to contain COVID-19. A Reserve Bank of India press release has informed that foreign currency assets, a major part of the overall reserves rose by 3.50 billion dollars to 455.21 billion dollars. In the previous week, the reserves had increased by three billion dollars to end at 490.044 billion dollars. The total value of the gold reserves, however, continued to decline. Gold reserves went down by 97 million dollars to end at 32.682 billion dollars. India’s special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund remained unchanged at 1.43 billion dollars, while the country’s reserve position rose by 31 million dollars to 4.16 billion dollars. China has by far the largest foreign currency reserves with over two and a half times more than the second-largest reserve holder, Japan. When China and Hong Kong reserves are considered together, the total is $3.87 trillion as of March 7, 2020. Foreign currency reserves are vital to a nation’s economic well-being. Without adequate reserves, an economy can grind to a halt, and a country may be unable to pay for critical imports, such as crude oil, or service its external debt. Fortunately, the consumption of petroleum products has substantially declined due to varied reasons. India was among the major importers of crude oil at the cost of the outgo of valuable Forex. Under the incumbent  NDA government headed by Narendra Modi, India is dedicated to using more and more non-petroleum fuels. (edited by PK Chakravarty)