India's external debt rises to US$ 513.4 billion end December 2017

Foreign exchange cover to total external debt improves to 79.7% end December 2017

India's External Debt Stock stood at US$ 513.4 billion end December 2017, recording an increase of US$ 41.6 billion (8.8%) over the level at end-March 2017.The rise in external debt during the period was primarily due to the increase in commercial borrowings, NRI deposits and short term debt. On a sequential basis, total external debt at end-December 2017 increased by US$ 17.6 billion (3.6%) from the end-September 2017 level.

The maturity pattern of India's External Debt indicates dominance of long-term borrowings. At end-December 2017, long-term external debt accounted for 81.0% of India's total external debt, while the remaining (19.0%) was short-term external debt.

 

Long-term debt at end-December 2017 was at US$ 415.8 billion, showing an increase of US$ 32.1 billion (8.4%) over the level at end-March 2017. Short-term external debt registered an increase of 10.8% and stood at US$ 97.6 billion at end-December 2017, and its share in total debt at 19.0% was higher than the 18.7% at end-March 2017.

Valuation loss (depreciation of US dollar against the SDR, Euro and pound sterling) was estimated at US$ 5.1 billion in December 2017, as compared to March 2017. This implies that excluding the valuation effect, increase in debt would have been lower at US$ 36.5 billion instead of US$ 41.6 billion at end-December 2017 over the end-March 2017 level.

The shares of Government (Sovereign) and non-Government debt in the total external debt were 21.2% and 78.8% respectively, at end-December 2017 with the former's share increasing from 19.4% at end-March 2017.

US dollar denominated debt accounted for 48.2% of India's total external debt at end-December 2017, followed by Indian rupee (37.3%), SDR (5.7%), Japanese Yen (4.6%), Euro (3.2%) and others (1.0%).

The foreign exchange cover to total external debt improved to 79.7% at end-December 2017 as compared to 78.4% at end-March 2017.

The ratio of short-term external debt by original maturity to foreign exchange reserves stood at 23.8% at end-December 2017 as compared to 23.2% at end September 2017 and 23.8% at end-March 2017.

On a residual maturity basis, short-term debt constituted 42.4% of total external debt at end-December 2017 (41.7% at end-September 2017 and 41.5% at end-March 2017) and its ratio to total foreign exchange reserves was at 53.2% (51.7% at end-September 2017 and 52.9% at end-March 2017).

The ratio of concessional debt to total external debt was 8.6% at end-December 2017, compared to the 9.3% at end-March 2017.

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