By 1985, India had started having balance of payments problems. By the end of 1990, it was in a serious economic crisis. The government was close to default, its central bank had refused new credit and foreign exchange reserves had been reduced to such a point that India could barely finance three weeks’ worth of imports which led the Indian government to airlift national gold reserves as a pledge to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for a loan to cover balance of payment debts.