Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) India’s external debt rose to $295.8 billion by Sep 30, 2010, an increase of $33.5 billion during the first six months of current fiscal, on increased short-term borrowings and depreciation in value of the US dollar. Long-term debt increased by 9.5 percent to $229.8 billion, while short-term debt soared 25.8 percent to $66 billion during the first two quarters of fiscal 2010-11, according to data released by the finance ministry Friday.

India’s total external debt rose to $295.8 billion by Sep 30, 2010, from $262.3 billion recorded at end-March 2010, registering an increase of 12.8 percent.

Of the total increase of $33.5 billion, 18.8 percent or $6.3 billion was because of the valuation effect arising from depreciation of the US dollar against major international currencies, a finance ministry statement said.

Short-term debt accounted for 22.3 percent of India’s total external debt while the rest 77.7 percent was long-term debt.

Component-wise, the share of commercial borrowings stood highest at 27.8 percent followed by Non-Resident Indian (NRI) deposits 16.9 percent and multilateral debt 15.8 percent.

The ratio of short-term external debt to foreign exchange reserves was 22.5 percent at end-September 2010 as compared to 18.8 percent at end-March 2010.

The share of US dollar denominated debt was the highest in external debt stock at 53.9 percent at the end of second quarter of fiscal 2010-11, followed by Indian rupee 18.8 percent, Japanese Yen 11.8 percent, SDR 9.8 percent and Euro 3.6 percent.