India's external debt rises to US$ 426.0 billion at end December 2013

External debt to GDP ratio stood at 23.3% at end-December 2013 compared to 21.8% at end-March 2013

As per the data released by Ministry of Finance, India's external debt increased to US$ 426.0 billion at end-December 2013, recording an increase of US$ 21.1 billion i.e. an increase of 5.2% over the level at end-March 2013. India's external debt to GDP ratio stood at 23.3% at end-December 2013 compared to 21.8% at end-March 2013.

The rise in external debt during the period was due to long-term debt particularly NRI deposits. A sharp increase in NRI deposits reflected the impact of fresh FCNR(B) deposits mobilized under the swap scheme during September-November 2013.

The long-term debt stood at US$ 333.3 billion at end-December 2013, showing an increase of 8.1% over the end-March 2013 level, while short-term debt declined by 4.1% to US$ 92.7 billion.

Short-term debt accounted for 21.8% of India's total external debt, while the remaining (78.2%) was long-term debt. Component-wise, commercial borrowings accounted for 31.5% of the total external debt, followed by NRI deposits (23.2%) and multilateral debt (12.3%).

Government (Sovereign) external debt stood at US$ 76.4 billion, (17.9% of total external debt) at end-December 2013 as against US$ 81.7 billion (20.2%) at end-March 2013.

The share of US dollar denominated debt was the highest in external debt stock and stood at 63.6% at end-December 2013, followed by debt denominated in Indian rupee (19.4%), SDR (7.1%), Japanese yen (5.0%) and Euro (3.1%).

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