Mumbai:

India’s foreign exchange reserves snapped a five-week rising streak and fell to $563.5 billion in the week through Dec. 16, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) statistical supplement showed on Friday.

For the week ended Dec. 9, the country’s reserves were at $564.07 billion. Overall, they have declined from $632.7 billion at the beginning of this year. The central bank has been intervening in the spot and forwards market to protect the rupee and preventing a rapid depreciation.

The rupee has been volatile against the dollar over the last few trading sessions. In the week to Dec. 16, the Indian unit fell 0.7% and traded in a 82.3975 to 82.8900 range. So far in 2022, the rupee has declined more than 11% and is on course to log its worst yearly performance since 2013.

The RBI had wound down much of its forward dollar holdings by the end of October, according to data released in the central bank’s monthly bulletin. The RBI said its net forward dollar holdings stood at $241 million at the end of October, compared with $10.42 billion as of end-September and $65.79 billion as of March-end.

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