The Reserve Bank of India has today released the 43rd half-yearly report on management of foreign exchange reserves with reference to end-September 2024. The position of foreign exchange reserves as on October 18, 2024 is as under: US $ Billion Foreign Exchange Reserves (i+ii+iii+iv)* 688.27 i. Foreign Currency Assets (FCA) 598.24 ii. Gold 67.44 iii. Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) 18.27 iv. Reserve Tranche Position (RTP) 4.32

Today, the Reserve Bank of India released on its website the DRG Study titled, “Monetary Policy Transmission and Labour Markets in India.” The study is co-authored by Chetan Ghate, Satadru Das, Debojyoti Mazumder, Sreerupa Sengupta, and Satyarth Singh.

On a review of the current and evolving liquidity conditions, it has been decided to conduct a Variable Rate Reverse Repo (VRRR) auction on September 30, 2024, Monday, as under:

The result of the auction of State Government Securities held on September 17, 2024 is as under:

The Reserve Bank has constituted an Expert Committee to: (a) benchmark the statistics regularly disseminated by it against global standards / best practices; (b) study the quality of other regular data, where such benchmarks do not exist (e.g., sectors of national priority); and (c) provide guidance on the scope for any further data refinement. Following is the composition of the Expert Committee: 1 Dr. Michael Debabrata Patra Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India Chairman

Regulated Entities (REs) generally use various models as part of their credit management, including for credit appraisal, borrower scoring, pricing, risk management, etc. With a view to addressing potential risks from use of such models and ensuring robustness in the process of model deployment by REs for credit decisions, the Reserve Bank of India today released the draft circular on ‘Regulatory Principles for Management of Model Risks in Credit’. The Comments on the draft circular are invited from public/stakeholders by September 4, 2024.

In terms of Para 13 (ii) of Government of India Notification F.No.4(10)- B(W&M)/2020 dated June 26, 2020 on Floating Rate Savings Bonds, 2020 (Taxable)- FRSB 2020 (T), the coupon/interest rate of the bond would be reset half yearly, starting with January 01, 2021 and the coupon/interest rate will be set at a spread of (+) 35 bps over the prevailing National Savings Certificate (NSC) rate. 2. Accordingly, the coupon rate on FRSB 2020 (T) for the period July 01, 2024 to December 31, 2024 and payable on January 1, 2025 remains at 8.05% (7.70%+0.35%), unchanged from the previous half-year.

The limits for financial accommodation extended by the Reserve Bank of India to State Governments / Union Territories (UTs) through Special Drawing Facility (SDF), Ways and Means Advances (WMA), and Overdraft (OD) schemes were last reviewed and announced on April 01, 2022.

The stock of external debt at end-March 2024 as well as revised data for earlier quarters are set out in Statements I (IMF format[1]) and II (old format). The major developments relating to India’s external debt as at end-March 2024 are presented below. Highlights At end-March 2024, India’s external debt was placed at US$ 663.8 billion, an increase of US$ 39.7 billion over its level at end-March 2023 (Table 1).
The external debt to GDP ratio declined to 18.7 per cent at end-March 2024 from 19.0 per cent at end-March 2023.
Valuation effect due to the appreciation of the US dollar vis-à-vis the Indian rupee and other major currencies such as yen, the euro and SDR[2] amounted to US$ 8.7 billion. Excluding the valuation effect, external debt would have increased by US$ 48.4 billion instead of US$ 39.7 billion at end-March 2024 over end-March 2023.
At end-March 2024, long-term debt (with original maturity of above one year) was placed at US$ 541.2 billion, recording an increase of US$ 45.6 billion over its level at end-March 2023.
The share of short-term debt (with original maturity of up to one year) in total external debt declined to 18.5 per cent at end-March 2024 from 20.6 per cent at end-March 2023. Similarly, the ratio of short-term debt (original maturity) to foreign exchange reserves declined to 19.0 per cent at end-March 2024 (22.2 per cent at end-March 2023).
Short-term debt on residual maturity basis (i.e., debt obligations that include long-term debt by original maturity falling due over the next twelve months and short-term debt by original maturity) constituted 42.9 per cent of total external debt at end-March 2024 (44.0 per cent at end-March 2023) and stood at 44.1 per cent of foreign exchange reserves (47.4 per cent at end-March 2023) (Table 2).
US dollar-denominated debt remained the largest component of India’s external debt, with a share of 53.8 per cent at end-March 2024, followed by debt denominated in the Indian rupee (31.5 per cent), yen (5.8 per cent), SDR (5.4 per cent), and euro (2.8 per cent).

The Reserve Bank of India has today released the data on Overseas Direct Investment, both under Automatic Route and the Approval Route, for the month of May 2024.