India’s external debt up $21 bn at $426 bn in April-December 2013

India's external debt increased by 5.2 per cent between end-March and end-December 2013 to $426.0 billion, recording an increase of $21.1 billion over the 9-month period, quarterly data  released by the finance ministry showed.

India's external debt to GDP ratio stood at 23.3 per cent at end-December 2013 vis-à-vis 21.8 per cent at end-March 2013.

The rise in external debt during the period was due to long-term debt particularly NRI deposits. A sharp increase in NRI deposits reflected the impact of fresh FCNR (B) deposits mobilised under the swap scheme during September-November 2013, the department of economic affairs of the finance ministry stated in a release.

Long-term debt stood at $333.3 billion at end-December 2013, showing an increase of 8.1 per cent over the end-March 2013 level, while short-term debt decreased by 4.1 per cent to $92.7 billion.

Short-term debt accounted for 21.8 per cent of the country's total external debt, while the remaining (78.2 per cent) was long-term debt.

Component-wise, commercial borrowings accounted for 31.5 per cent of the total external debt, followed by NRI deposits (23.2 per cent) and multilateral debt (12.3 per cent).

Government (sovereign) external debt stood at $76.4 billion, (17.9 per cent of total external debt) at end-December 2013 as against $81.7 billion (20.2 per cent) at end-March 2013.

The share of US dollar denominated debt was the highest in external debt stock at 63.6 per cent as of end-December 2013, followed by debt denominated in Indian rupee (19.4 per cent), SDR (7.1 per cent), Japanese yen (5.0 per cent) and Euro (3.1 per cent).