Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Forex reserves, BoP

Mains level: India's forex reserves and its implications

India’s forex reserves zoomed by $10.417 billion to $572 billion, making it one of the biggest weekly jumps in recent times.

Recent trends in FOREX Reserves

In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves had dropped by $1.268 billion to $561.583 billion.
In October 2021, the country’s forex reached an all-time high of $645 billion.
The reserves have been declining as the central bank deploys the kitty to defend the rupee amid pressures caused majorly by global developments.
In October 2022, the reserves had swelled by $14.721 billion during a week.

What is Foreign Exchange (Forex) Reserve?

Foreign exchange reserves are important assets held by the central bank in foreign currencies as reserves.
They are commonly used to support the exchange rate and set monetary policy.
In India’s case, foreign reserves include Gold, Dollars, and the IMF’s quota for Special Drawing Rights.
Most of the reserves are usually held in US dollars, given the currency’s importance in the international financial and trading system.
Some central banks keep reserves in Euros, British pounds, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan, in addition to their US dollar reserves.

Currently, China has the largest reserves followed by Japan and Switzerland.
India earlier overtook Russia to become the fourth-largest country with foreign exchange reserves. (Data from August 2022)

All international transactions are settled in US dollars and, therefore, required to support India’s imports.
More importantly, they need to maintain support and confidence for central bank action, whether monetary policy action or any exchange rate intervention to support the domestic currency.
It also helps to limit any vulnerability due to sudden disturbances in foreign capital flows, which may arise during a crisis.
Holding liquid foreign currency provides a cushion against such effects and provides confidence that there will still be enough foreign exchange to help the country with crucial imports in case of external shocks.

To increase the foreign exchange reserves, the Government of India has taken many initiatives like AatmaNirbhar Bharat, in which India has to be made a self-reliant nation so that India does not have to import things that India can produce.
Other than AatmaNirbhar Bharat, the government has started schemes like Duty Exemption Scheme, Remission of Duty or Taxes on Export Product (RoDTEP), Nirvik (Niryat Rin Vikas Yojana) scheme, etc.
Apart from these schemes, India is one of the top countries that attracted the highest amount of Foreign Direct Investment, thereby improving India’s foreign exchange reserves.