India's forex reserves decline by $12.6m

India's foreign exchange (forex) reserves declined by 12.6 million US dollars to stand at 295.50 billion US dollars for the week ended Dec. 20, said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) statistics published Saturday. The decrease of forex reserves was mainly attributed to heavy swaps with foreign currencies by the Indian rupees as was operated by the RBI, India's central bank, over the past few weeks, according to analysts. RBI's weekly statistical supplement said foreign currency assets, which is the predominant part of forex reserves of India, have dropped to 268.46 billion US dollars. Meanwhile, India's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rose by 91.2 million US dollars to 1.99 billion US dollars, while the country's gold reserves remained unchanged at 20.60 billion US dollars, said the RBI statistics.