India pays off 7 per cent more external debt in March-September 2009

India repaid $7.67 billion (Rs36,816 crore), or 7 per cent more, as external debt in the first six months of the financial year, compared with the same period last year. This has been achieved despite the soft interest rate regime globally.

India paid $2.52 billion (Rs12,096 crore) as interest during the first half of this financial year, down 20.7 per cent from Rs15,264 crore ($3.18 billion) in the period a year ago.

However, its outgo on principal amount rose by around 29 per cent to $5.15 billion (Rs24,720 crore), against $3.99 billion (Rs19,152 crore) in the corresponding period of the previous year.

According to official figures, even as the country's debt repayments went up, its current receipts (income from export of goods, services and some other investment income) went down to around $156 billion (Rs7,48,800 crore), against $196 billion (Rs9,40,800 crore) over the period. This means that there was less money available to service debts.

The debt service ratio, which is the ratio of total debt service payments to current receipts, rose to 4.9 per cent in the first half of this fiscal against 3.7 per cent a year ago.
 
The country's external debt rose $18.2 billion to $242.8 billion as of 30 September 2009, from $224.6 billion at the end March 2009.