Mumbai, Apr 3 (IANS): Reserve Bank of India on Friday notified new market timings for the government bond, forex markets, while maintaining the duration of other key banking related activities.

Accordingly, the RBI notified that market activities, including the sales and purchase of G-secs will commence by 10 a.m. and end at 2 p.m. from April 7. This is also half of earlier trading window for the instrument that commenced from 9 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m.

"The unprecedented situation created by the COVID-19 outbreak has necessitated lockdowns, social distancing, restrictions on movement of people and non-essential activities, work from home arrangements and business continuity plans," the RBI said in a statement.

"The resultant dislocations have adversely impacted the functioning of financial markets. Staff and IT resources have been severely affected, posing operational and logistic risks. The thinning out of activity is impacting market liquidity and increasing volatility of financial prices."

As per the statement, in order to minimise these risks and to ensure that market participants maintain adequate checks and supervisory controls while optimising thin resources and ensuring safety of personnel, it has been decided to revise trading hours for various markets.

"These arrangements will become effective from April 7, 2020 (Tuesday) and continue up to April 17, 2020 (Friday) (both days inclusive)," the statement added.