The second milestone was the replacement of restrictive FERA with the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in the year 2000. This provided further fillip to the development of the foreign exchange market which can be gauged from the rise in the average daily forex market turnover from approximately $ 6 billion in 2000 to nearly $ 60 billion in 2010–11.
This figure excludes the daily turnover in the exchange traded currency futures market which would add up to another $ 5 to 7 billion a day. The depth of the foreign exchange market can also be gauged from the fact that the bid offer spread in USD INR pair is now around half a paisa.