India's external debt declines to $491 billion at June-end: RBI

Decline in external debt was partly offset by valuation gains of $1.4 billion, triggered by an appreciation of the dollar

India's end-June external debt stood at $479.7 billion, down by $5.4 billion from its March-end figures, being largely driven by the lower offshore borrowings by companies, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Friday.

The decline in external debt was partly offset by valuation gains of $1.4 billion, due to appreciation of the dollar against the Indian rupee and other major currencies. Excluding the valuation effect, the decline in external debt would have been $4.0 billion, the RBI said in a statement.

On a residual maturity basis, short-term debt constituted 42.4 percent of total external debt at end-June, compared with 42.6 percent at March-end.

The share of short-term debt residual maturity to India's forex reserves was 55.9 percent at end-June compared with 57.4 percent at the end of March.