India's external debt up 13.9% to $297.5 bn at Dec-end

India's external debt increased by 13.9% at the end of December to $297.5 billion from March 2010.

The debt, which included commercial borrowings and NRI deposits, was $261.2 billion at the end of March 2010.

"The long-term debt increased by $26.0 billion to $234.9 billion i.e. an increase of 12.5%. The short-term debt showed an increase of $10.3 billion to $62.6 billion," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

Short-term debt (original maturity) accounted for 21% of India's total external debt while the remaining 79% was long-term debt.

Of the total increase of $36.3 billion in external debt at end-December, the valuation effect arising from depreciation of the US dollar against major international currencies accounted for $5.3 billion (14.6%).

"Excluding the valuation effect, the increase in external debt would have been $31.0 billion," according to the Department of Economic Affairs' quarterly statistics said.

Component-wise, the share of commercial borrowings stood highest at 28.5%, followed by NRI deposits (17%) and multilateral debt (16%).

The government (Sovereign) external debt stood at $74.5 billion (25% of total external debt) at end-December 2010, as against $67.1 billion (25.7%) at end-March 2010.

The share of US dollar denominated debt was the highest in external debt stock at 53.7% at end-December 2010, followed by the Indian rupee (19%), Japanese Yen (12%), SDR (9.7%) and Euro (3.5%).

India's external debt to GDP ratio and debt service ratios stood at 16.9% and 3.9%, respectively, at end-December 2010.

The ratio of short-term external debt to foreign exchange reserves was 21.1% at end-December 2010 compared to 18.8% at end-March 2010.