India's External Debt Stands At $426 Billion

External debt rises to $426 b

India’s total external debt stock stood at $426 billion or 5.2% as on December 2013 higher than March 2013 where as the external debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio has increased to 23.3% from 21.8%.
The increase in external debt was due to long-term debt, especially non-resident Indian (NRI) deposits. Increase in NRI deposits reflected the impact of FCNR [Foreign Currency Non-Resident] deposits mobilized under the swap scheme during September-November 2013
As a result, long-term debt at the end of December 2013 was $333.3 billion or 8.1% higher than the end-March 2013 level.
The short-term debt decreased by 4.1% to $92.7 billion.
Commercial borrowings accounted for 31.5 %, followed by NRI deposits (23.2%) and multilateral debt (12.3 %)of the total external debt, the balance (78.2 %) was long-term debt.
On Dec 2013 Government sovereign external debt stood at $76.4 billion (17.9 % of total external debt) against $81.7 billion (20.2 %) on March 31, 2013.

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