NRIs bring in more dollars during lockdown |
Non-resident Indians or NRIs have brought to India a higher amount of $4.6 billion between April and July this year when most of the countries faced stringent lockdowns across the world. This is calculated to be 50 percent more than what NRIs had brought to India during the same period of last year. According to the latest Reserve Bank of India data, with this inflow, total NRI deposits touched $135.36 billion as of July 2020, up from $130.58 billion in March 2020, $133.12 billion in 2019, and $124.44 billion in 2018. A bulk of this amount has come from Gulf countries, the US and Eurozone where NRIs are in large numbers. After the lockdown was imposed in April, layoffs and salary cuts happened in many Gulf countries and interest rates declined further in most countries which could have an effect on higher inflows. The data shows that as much as $96.08 billion of NRI deposits is in non-resident external rupee accounts, while foreign currency non-resident bank accounts attracted $22.62 billion till July this year. Funds in both the accounts can be repatriated. During April-July 2020, NRIs withdrew $1.62 billion from the FCNR (B) account but deposited $5.55 billion in NR(E) RA accounts. Besides, NRIs have put $16.6 billion in NRO or non-resident ordinary accounts as of July 2020.
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