Mumbai: India’s foreign exchange reserves declined for a seventh straight week, touching $545.652 billion in the week ending September 16, Reserve Bank of India’s data showed on Friday.

In the previous week ending September 9, the foreign exchange reserves stood at $550.871 billion. The reserves have dropped by $5.22 billion to hit the lowest level since October 2, 2020, RBI’s weekly statistical supplement showed on Friday. In the week ending September 16, the foreign currency assets stood at $484.901 billion, gold reserves at $38.186 billion and special drawing rights at $17.686 billion.

The foreign exchange reserves stood at $550.871 billion at the end of the previous week.

The Indian rupee on Friday fell 41 paise to all-time low of 81.20 against US dollar in early trade on the back of US Treasury yields climbing to fresh multi-year highs and dollar demand from importers.

At 09:25 am IST, the local currency was trading at 81.13. The rupee had plunged 1.1 per cent against the dollar on Thursday, closing at a record low of 80.87 per dollar.

Experts said that a large part of the decline has been on account of the Reserve Bank of India’s intervention in the currency market though the fall in reserves is partly due to valuation changes.

The Indian stock market’s key indices, Nifty and Sensex, dropped by nearly 2 per cent on Friday, leading to an erosion of more than Rs 4 lakh crore of investors’ wealth amid weak global cues after the US Federal Reserve signalled an aggressive increase in interest rate to control inflation.

The 30 stock S&P BSE Sensex slumped 1020.80 points or 1.73 per cent to 58,098.92 points against its previous day’s close at 59,119.72 points.