Mumbai:
The Reserve Bank of India has said that India''s external
debt has is now at $123.3 billion, up $11.6 billion from
$111.7 billion in March 2004.
The
10.4 per cent rise was the highest accretion in any single
year since 1990-91, said a RBI release here on Thursday.
The US dollar continued to dominate the currency composition
of India''s external debt at 45 per cent. The rupee followed
at 19 per cent, SDRs (16 per cent), Japanese yen (11 per
cent) and euro (5 per cent).
ECBs,
short-term and long-term trade credits, multilateral debt
and NRI deposits were the key drivers to the growth in
the external debt stock.
While
ECBs have risen to $26.9 billion from $22.1 billion last
year, bilateral debt fell marginally at $17.2 billion
from $17.3 billion. Rupee debt fell to $2.3 billion from
$2.7 billion. ECBs mainly took the form of syndicated
loans and issues of bonds including foreign currency convertible
bonds.
NRI
deposits also showed a rise to $32.6 billion in 2004-05
from $31.2 billion.
Short-term
debt recorded the highest growth of 69.8 per cent during
the year, a reflection of a sharp rise in POL and non-POL
imports. It increased from $4.43 billion to $7.52 billion.
There
was a prepayment of debt amounting to $35.1 million during
the year as compared $3.8 billion in the previous fiscal.
The ratio of short term to total debt posted a rise -
from 4 per cent last year to 6.1 per cent in 2004-05.
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