The News Review:

- Forex reserves jump $482 m to touch $314 bn
- Forex regimes
- India’s forex reserves up to $312 billion
- FOREX:Ringgit Likely To Test New 10-year High Against US Dollar Next…
- RBI takes forwards route to rein in Re
- Bellwethers draw TAIEX down
- The Raman effect- The Leisure Lounge-Special Pages-Features-The…

Forex reserves jump $482 m to touch $314 bn
Economic Times – Apr 19, 2008
After a pile-up of almost $8 billion in the past two
weeks, the growth in reserves has slowed down this week. The government, on the
other hand, is withdrawing surplus cash parked with the central bank, which is
adding to the liquidity in the system in the process. According to
the figures released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its weekly
statistical supplement (WSS), total foreign exchange reserves, including gold
and SDR, rose $482 million during the week ended April 11. While foreign
currency assets rose $426 million, the balance was on account of a growth in
reserves with the IMF.

Forex regimes
Pakistan Dawn – Apr 19, 2008
com – DO NOT MODIFY –>. “We need more flexibility in exchange rate regimes, policies,” Fan Gang, who holds the academic seat on the People’s Bank of China’s monetary policy committee, told a news conference on the margins of an economics forum in Paris. He was speaking of developing countries in general rather than of China, which has faced pressure from the United States and other western countries to revalue its yuan currency more quickly, specifically.

India’s forex reserves up to $312 billion
Mathaba.Net – Apr 19, 2008
367 billion for the week ended April 11 from $311. 885 billion in the previous week. Foreign Currency Assets (FCAs) shot up to $ 301. 820 billion during the period, up $ 426 million from $ 301.

FOREX:Ringgit Likely To Test New 10-year High Against US Dollar Next…
Bernama – Apr 19, 2008
dollar next week on the greenback’s weakness following market participants’ persistent fear over the fate of the U. economy, dealers said.

RBI takes forwards route to rein in Re
Economic Times – Apr 19, 2008
The central bank
has also gone in for rolling over of forward contracts, which it had entered
into between November 2007 and January 2008. This is also because under current
circumstances, the central bank may not be in a position to take physical
delivery of the contracts. Senior forex managers state that going
forward, the proportion of sterilisation of dollar fund inflows through the
forward market could be larger than that through the issue of bonds under the
market stabilisation route. It may be mentioned that this week saw
RBI actually rejecting bids for treasury bills worth Rs 5,000 crore. This was
seen as an attempt made by RBI to send a signal to the market that rates are not
expected to firm up. Despite exporters selling the greenback in recent times,
much of the dollar inflows (even those coming in through foreign institutional
investors) have been mopped up by the central bank. This has held
the local currency in a tight range of 39… Most market
participants had anticipated that the central bank would announce the CRR hike
in its annual policy review later this month. With the hike happening beforehand
itself, traders are now fearing that the central bank would tinker with the repo
and reverse repo rates in the forthcoming policy review. JP
Morgan?s fixed income and forex strategist, Vikas Agarwal said, ?The
sharp pick-up in forex operations by the RBI in the past couple of weeks shows
that there is concern on areas of growth and exporters? well-being, so the
central bank is unlikely to let the rupee rise steeply. However, one has to
watch whether the recent rebound in equities is sustained. If so, the rupee
might have a more graded pace of appreciation. getElementById(”storydiv”).

Bellwethers draw TAIEX down
Taipei Times – Apr 19, 2008
¡§This trend is a reflection of the uncertainty in the semiconductor industry and with current economic conditions,¡¨ said Dan Tracy, senior director of Industry Research and Statistics at San Jose, California-based SEMI. NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar continued losing ground against its US counterpart, following US dollar purchases by the central bank and some importers, dealers said. The NT dollar dropped NT$0. 009 to close at NT$30. 284 against the US dollar on the Taipei Forex Inc, with a turnover of US$973 million. Copyright © 1999-2008 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.

The Raman effect- The Leisure Lounge-Special Pages-Features-The…
Economic Times – Apr 19, 2008
”

Soon after, GE snapped him up from
Amex to start a call centre (at Amex it was only transaction processing),
something that had not happened before. At the time, VSNL laughed at the concept
and GE honchos in the US including Jack Welch wondered whether it could actually
be done out of India. An advice from a joint secretary at the science &
technology ministry emphasising job creation and forex earnings via call centers
in his presentation finally convinced VSNL to give him a chance. Then
GE gave him $100,000 in 1998 to prove that global call centers could work in
India. If not, “you will be fired,” was the diktat. The first GE call centre,
called GECIS had 21 people. “About 18 of them are VPs,” he points out.