India’s external debt stood at $365.30 billion as at September 30, 2012, up $20 billion over the level at March, 2012, due to higher NRI deposits, short-term debt and commercial borrowings.
“The rise in external debt is largely due to higher NRI deposits, short-term debt and commercial borrowings,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
Long-term debt stood at $280.8 billion at the end of September, showing an increase of 5.1 per cent over end-March, the statement said.
Short-term debt (accounts for 23 per cent of total external debt) increased by 8.1 per cent to $84.5 billion.
Component-wise, the share of commercial borrowings stood higher at 29.8 per cent, followed by NRI deposits at 18.3 per cent and multilateral debt at 13.9 per cent.
Debt denominated in U.S. dollars remained the highest with a share of 55.7 per cent in total external debt followed by the Indian rupee (22.9 per cent) and Japanese yen (8.6 per cent), the statement said.
India’s foreign exchange reserves provided a cover of 80.7 per cent to the total external debt stock at end-September, against 85.2 per cent at end-March, 2012.