India’s External Debt at Quarter end-June 2003 - आरबीआय - Reserve Bank of India
India’s External Debt at Quarter end-June 2003
India’s external debt(in Rupees Crores) (in Dollars millions) at US $ 109.6 billion as at end-June 2003, increased by US $ 5.0 billion (by 4.8 per cent) from US $ 104.6 billion as at end-March 2003.
The increase in external debt during the quarter under review (April-June 2003) was mainly on account of increase in NRI deposits (US $ 2.6 billion), external commercial borrowings (US $ 1.1billion) and short-term trade credit (US $ 0.9 billion).
The increase in NRI deposits by US $ 2.6 billion was mainly on account of an increase in NRE deposits by US $ 2.7 billion as there was an outflow of US $ 0.1 billion in FCNR(B) deposits. The increase in NRE deposits includes reinvestment of maturity proceeds of NR(NR)RD scheme (which was discontinued with effect from April 1, 2002), of around US $ 0.4 billion.
Increase in ECB reflected rise in borrowing by corporates in the face of low international interest rates. Trade credit increase has been the result of sharp increase in India’s imports.
The largest component of India’s overall external debt as at end-June 2003 was multilateral debt (accounting for 27.6 per cent), followed by NRI deposits (25.3 per cent), external commercial borrowings (21.4 per cent), and bilateral debt (15.5 per cent).
Short-term debt increased significantly from US $ 4.6 billion as at end-March 2003 to US $ 5.8 billion as at end-June 2003 due to increase in both components of short-term debt, viz., NRI deposits and short-term trade credit.
The concessional debt as a proportion of total debt declined from 36.9 per cent as at end-March 2003 to 35.5 per cent at end-June 2003.
Despite considerable growth in short-term debt (27.7 per cent) during April-June 2003, the proportion of such debt in the overall debt stock remains modest at 5.3 per cent.
Note : Under Special Data Dissemination Standards (SDDS) commitment, India's external debt statistics will be henceforth published with a time lag of three months. According to the arrangement, Reserve Bank of India will publish data for end-June & end-March and Government of India for end-September and end-December.
P.V. Sadanandan
Manager
Press Release : 2003-04/443