India's external debt declines by $3.6 bn in Q1

Mumbai: India’s external debt at the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal declined by 0.9 percent on sequential basis to $388.5 billion due to strengthening of the US dollar against rupee.

In absolute terms, the decline was of $3.6 billion, the Reserve Bank said today.

“External debt as at end-June 2013 recorded a decline over the end-March 2013 largely due to valuation gains resulting from appreciation of US dollar against Indian rupee and other international currencies as well as decline in the level of external commercial borrowings (ECBs),” it said.

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The valuation gain during the first quarter of 2013-14, the RBI said, amounted to $9.5 billion reflecting the appreciation of dollar against the rupee and other major currencies.

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“Thus, excluding the valuation gains, the stock of external debt as at end-June 2013 would have increased by 5.9 billion,” the central bank said.

As per the RBI data, the share of ECBs continued to be the highest at 30.7 per cent of total external debt, followed by short term debt (24.9 per cent) and NRI deposits (18.3 percent).

The share of short-term debt in total debt rose over the preceding as well as corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The long-term debt at $291.8 billion and short-term debt at $96.8 billion accounted for 75.1 per cent and 24.9 per cent, respectively, of the total external debt, the data revealed.

Based on residual maturity, the short-term debt accounted for 43.8 per cent of total external debt as at April-June 2013 quarter. Within the short-term debt, the share of NRI deposits was 28.1 per cent.

The US dollar denominated debt continued to be the largest with a share of 58.9 per cent in the total external debt as at end-June 2013, followed by rupee (22.6 per cent), SDR (7.6 per cent), Japanese Yen (6.0 per cent) and Euro (3.2 per cent).

As per the RBI, government (Sovereign) external debt stood at US$ 78.4 billion as at end-June 2013 as against $81.7 billion as at end-March 2013.

The shares of government and non-government external debt in the total external debt were 20.2 per cent and 79.8 per cent, respectively, as at end-June 2013.

PTI