India's external debt rises 16.5 per cent to $262 billion in FY'10

India's external debt stood at $261.5 billion at end-March 2010, showing an increase of $37 billion (or 16.5 per cent) over the $224.5 billion at end-March 2009.

The increase has largely been on account of long-term components such as external commercial borrowings, NRI deposits and Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation by the International Monetary Fund, a government release said today.

The depreciation effect of the US dollar against major international currencies also contributed 17.8 per cent ($6.6 billion) to the total increase in India's external debt in US dollar terms, the release noted.

Of this, long-term debt stood at $208.9 billion at end-March 2010, accounting for 79.9 per cent of the total external debt. The share of short-term debt in total external debt, however, has gone up to 20.1 per cent at end-March 2010 from 19.3 per cent at end-March 2009. This has been attributed to a change in the definition of short-term debt from 2005 onwards, with increased coverage.

The government's (sovereign) external debt stood at $67.1 billion, accounting for 25.7 per cent of total external debt at end-March 2010 as against $55.9 billion at end-March 2009. Similarly, government guaranteed external debt increased marginally to $7.7 billion at end-March 2010 from $6.8 billion at end-March 2009.

India's external debt service payments stood at 5.5 per cent in 2009-10, increasing steadily from 4.4 per cent in 2007-08 to 4.8 per cent in 2008-09, due mainly to higher repayments under external commercial borrowings.