India's overseas debt up 12.8 per cent at $296-billion in April-September

31 Dec 2010

India's external debt stock rose 12.8 per cent to $295.8 billion as of end-September 2010, from a level of $262.3 billion at end-March 2010.

The country's long-term debt increased by 9.5 per cent to $229.8 billion while short-term debt jumped 25.8 per cent to $66.0 billion.

Of the total increase of $33.5 billion in India's external debt, 18.8 per cent (or $6.3 billion) has been attributed to the valuation effect arising from depreciation of the US dollar against major international currencies.

Excluding the valuation effect, the increase in external debt would have been $27.2 billion, a government release said.

Short-term debt accounted for 22.3 per cent of India's total external debt while the rest 77.7 per cent was long-term debt.

The share of commercial borrowings was the highest at 27.8 per cent, followed by NRI deposits (16.9 per cent) and multilateral debt (15.8 per cent).