Forex reserves up by $1bn
Mumbai: After a marginal rise in inflows for the last three weeks, India's foreign exchange reserves have risen by $1 billion to $142.54 billion, for the week ended April 22, 2005. The country's foreign exchange reserves now stand at $1,42,546 million, an increase of $1,001 million over last week's reserves of $1,41,545 million, according to the RBI's weekly statistical supplement.

Gold reserves and SDRs remained static at $4,500 million and $five million respectively.

For three weeks up to April 15, the additions to the foreign exchange reserves were of the order of less than $300 million every week.

The country's reserve tranche position in the IMF was up by $16 million to $1,430 million.

Loans and advances to the state government were up by Rs388 crore to Rs4,608 crore while that to the central government showed a nil balance.

During the fortnight ending April 15, aggregate deposits went up by Rs9,622 crore (0.5 per cent) to Rs17,76,250 crore. Demand deposits were down by Rs10,192 crore to Rs2,71,782 crore while time deposits were up by Rs19,815 crore to Rs15,04,468 crore.

Bank credit declined by Rs9,427 crore (0.8 per cent) to Rs11,32,274 crore.

Food credit fell by Rs3,169 crore to Rs36,847 crore while non-food credit was down by Rs6,257 crore to Rs10,95,428 crore, it added.
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HDFC Bank in pact with Qatar bank
Mumbai: HDFC Bank has tied up with the International Bank of Qatar (IBQ) for the launch of banking services in Qatar. The tie-up will enable Indian expatriates in Qatar to access HDFC Bank's products and services through the IBQ, a release from the bank has said.

IBQ is part owned by the Royal family of Qatar and is managed by the National Bank of Kuwait.

The release said that by opening an NRE account with HDFC Bank in India and an NRI account in IBQ Qatar, customers can enjoy a host of products and services such as centralised banking, fee waiver on debit card and remittance services.
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