Forex reserves touch $291 bn

• India's foreign exchange reserves continued to rise for the second consecutive week, going up by USD 3.86 billion to USD 291.56 billion from USD 287.73 billion last week.
• Foreign currency assets, a major component of the forex kitty, shot up USD 3.79 billion to USD 264.53 billion for the week ended September 24, data released on Friday by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed.
• Foreign currency assets expressed in US dollar terms include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of the non-US currencies, such as the euro, pound and yen, held in the reserves
• The total reserves had risen USD 3.23 billion in the week earlier on the back of healthy rise in foreign currency assets.
• India's gold reserves remained unchanged at a little over USD 20 billion while there was a marginal USD 40 million rise in India's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to USD 5.026 billion, the data showed.
  
• The country's reserve position in the International Monetary Fund was also marginally up by USD 15 million to USD 1.952 billion, the apex bank data showed.