India's external debt up 16.5 per cent at $261.4 billion
01 Jul 2010
India's external debt as of end-March 2010 increased by $36.9 billion to $261.4 billion, recording an increase of 16.5 per cent over the end-March 2009 level even as the external debt to GDP ratio stood at 18.9 per cent.
The increase is attributed to a significant increase in IMF liabilities due to additional allocations of SDR, commercial borrowings, NRI deposits and short-term trade credits, an RBI release said.
Excluding the valuation effects due to depreciation of the US dollar against other major international currencies and the Indian rupee, the stock of external debt has increased by $30.4 billion over the stock at end-March 2009.
The share of commercial borrowings was the highest at 27.2 per cent as of end-March 2010 followed by short-term debt (20.1 per cent), NRI deposits (18.4 per cent) and multilateral debt (16.3 per cent).
India's debt service ratio increased to 5.5 per cent during 2009-10 from 4.6 per cent during 2008-09.
Based on residual maturity, short-term debt accounted for 41.2 per cent of the total external debt as of end-March 2010, whereas the share of short-term debt, by original maturity, was 20.1 per cent of the total external debt stock.