India’s External DEBT as at end-December 2009
Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance has been compiling and releasing quarterly statistics on India’s External Debt for the quarters ending September and December every year.
India’s total external debt stock has recorded an increase of 11.9 percent at US$ 251.4 billion as at end-December 2009 recorded an increase of US$ 26.8 billion (11.9 per cent) over end-March 2009 estimates of US$ 224.6 billion. The long-term debt increased by US$ 25.0 billion (13.8 per cent) to US$ 206.2 billion, while short-term debt increased by US$ 1.8 billion (4.3 per cent) to US$ 45.2 billion compared to the end-March estimates of the same at US$ 181.2 billion and US $ 43.4 billion respectively.
Of the total increase of US$ 26.8 billion in India’s external debt at end-December 2009, the valuation effect on account of depreciation of the US dollar against major international currencies accounted for US$ 9.9 billion or 40.0 per cent. This implies that if the US$ had not depreciated against the major currencies, the increase in total external debt would have been only US $16.9 billion to US $ 241.5 billion.
Government (Sovereign) external debt was US$ 66.9 billion (a share of 26.6 per cent in total external debt) as at end-December 2009 as against US$ 55.9 billion (a share of 24.9 per cent of total external debt) as at end-March 2009. The ratio of Government external debt to GDP has remained around 5.0 per cent in the last three years.
US dollar denominated debt accounted for 52.0 per cent of total external debt at end-December 2009, followed by the Indian rupee (17.2 per cent), Japanese Yen (12.7 per cent), SDR (11.4 per cent) and Euro (4.2 per cent).
The debt-service ratio i.e., the ratio of total debt service payments to current receipts worked out to 5.1 per cent during April-December 2009 as against 4.0 per cent for April-December 2008. The ratio of short-term external debt to foreign exchange reserves decreased from 17.2 per cent at end-March 2009 to 15.7 per cent at end-December 2009.
The complete quarterly report of India’s external debt as at end-December 2009 is available on the website of Ministry of Finance – www.finmin.nic.in.
