India says debt rollover risk in next five years low

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Indian government's debt rollover risk in the next five years is low given the amount of domestic debt that needs to be repaid every year is an average of 5.3 percent of its outstanding stock, it said in a report on Tuesday.

The rollover risks will get further mitigated through buyback or switching of short-end bonds with longer tenure papers by the government in the market, it said in its quarterly debt management report.

"The implementation of budgeted buyback/switches in coming period is expected to reduce rollover risk further," the finance ministry said.

India bought back 170.16 billion rupees worth of bonds maturing in 2017/18 and sold in its place 2024/25 and 2029/30 papers to a bank in June under one of its switches, it said in the report.

The government also bought back 277.67 billion rupees of short-dated securities last week as a part of its debt management operation to reduce risks of bulk payouts next year.

Meanwhile, banks' holding of government debt as of end-March eased to 40.5 percent of outstanding stock from 41.8 percent a year ago, while insurers increased their holdings to 22.9 percent from 22.2 percent in March 2016.

The central bank's holding of sovereign debt also went up to 14.7 percent of the total stock as of March 2017 from 13.5 percent a year ago.

(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)