MUMBAI, Sept 20 – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) bought a net of $6.93 billion in the spot foreign exchange market in July, data released on Friday as part of the central bank’s monthly bulletin showed.
The RBI said it purchased $23.57 billion and sold $16.64 billion. In June, the central bank had sold a net of $2.11 billion in the spot market.
The Indian rupee depreciated by 0.4% against the dollar in July, the worst since March, and traded in a range of 83.37 to 83.75.
The RBI’s net outstanding forward sales stood at $9.1 billion as of end-July, compared with a net sales of $15.84 billion at the end of the previous month, the data showed.
The central bank intervenes in the spot and forwards market to curb exchange rate volatility.
The rupee settled at 83.5625 on Friday, and gained nearly 0.4% week-on-week, its strongest weekly rise this year. (Reporting by Siddhi Nayak in Mumbai; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
