India’s external debt rose 8.9% by December to $376.3 billion since March last year on a jump in both long-term and short-term debts, the finance ministry said on Thursday. The external debt accounted for 20.6% of the GDP at the end of December last year, compared with 19.7% as on March 31.
?Increase in long-term debt was mainly on account of NRI deposits and commercial borrowings, while short-term debt stood higher on account of trade related credits,” it said in a statement.
However, in rupee terms, external debt until end-December showed a 16.7% rise to R20,60,904 crore at the end of December, thanks to the depreciation of the domestic currency.
While the long-term debt rose 6.4% to $284.4 billion at the end of December, compared with the March level, the short-term debt jumped 17.5% to $91.9 billion during the period. Long-term debt accounted for 75.6% of the country’s total external debt, while the short-term debt makes up for the remaining 24.4%. Within the long-term category, components such as commercial borrowings make up for 30% of the total external debt, followed by NRI deposits (18%) and multilateral debt (13.7%).
The government (sovereign) external debt accounted for 21.7% of the external debt, or $81.7 billion, by end-December, compared with 23.7%, or $ 81.9 billion, by March 31.
?The share of US dollar denominated debt was the highest in external debt stock and stood at 56.8% at end-December 2012, followed by debt denominated in terms of the Indian rupee (23.1%), SDR (7.9%), Japanese yen (7.6%) and euro (3.2%),? the ministry said.