The country's foreign currency reserves continued an upward march, increasing by US $ 455 million to US $ 39,476 million as compared to previous week ended on December eight. The foreign currency assets also increased by US $ 445 million to US $ 36,722 million as compared to US $ 36,267 million for the last week, the Reserve Bank of India's weekly statistical supplement said in Mumbai on Saturday. The upsurge continued for a fifth week in row following inflows of State Bank of India's millennium deposits proceeds into the country. The foreign currency assets expressed in US $ terms include the effect of appreciation/depreciation of non-US currencies like Euro, Sterling, Yen held in reserves, it said. The gold reserves and special drawing rights remained static at US $ 2,752 million and two million respectively, the supplement said. The loans and advances extended by RBI to the Centre rose by Rs 2,221 crore to Rs 7,226 crore while that to state government jumped by Rs 1,124 crore to Rs 4,090 crore. Aggregate deposits of scheduled commercial banks as on December one rose by Rs 3,772 crore to Rs 9,18,449 crore while bank credit was up by Rs 163 crore in the fortnight to Rs 4,80,748 crore. The food credit during the period increased by Rs 1,483 crore to Rs 36,917 crore whereas non-food credit fell by Rs 1,320 crore to Rs 4,43,831 crore, the Apex Bank said. Bureau Report