Foreign exchange reserves up

The central bank witnessed an increase of Rs 89.98 billion gross foreign exchange reserves in the six months of the current fiscal year.
The gross foreign exchange reserves increased by 33.1 per cent to Rs 362.13 billion in mid-January from a level of Rs 272.15 billion as at mid-July 2011, according to the central bank data.
"Such reserves had declined by 2.7 per cent to Rs 261.64 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year," it said, adding that of total reserves, Nepal Rastra Bank's (NRB) reserves increased by 41.3 per cent to Rs 301.07 billion from a level of Rs 213.10 billion as of mid-July 2011.
In the US dollar terms, the gross foreign exchange reserves increased by 15.3 per cent to $4.42 billion in mid-January from the level of mid-July 2011.
"The reserves had increased by just 0.7 per cent in the same period of the previous year," it added.
Based on the trend of imports during the six months of the current fiscal year, the current level of reserves is sufficient for financing merchandise imports of 10.2 months, and merchandise and service imports of 9.1 months, the central bank said.