A government statement showed that the country’s total external debt rose $30.8 billion or 8.9 percent to $376.3 billion as of December 31, 2012 from $345.5 billion at end-March 2012.
The rise in the external debt is attributed to long-term and short-term components of debt. While trade related credits increased short-term debt of the country, long-term debt rose mainly on account of NRI deposits and commercial borrowings.
As at end-December 2012, the country had a long-term debt of $284.4 billion , up 6.4 per cent over March 2012. Long-term debt is 75.6 per cent of total external borrowings.
Within long-term, commercial borrowings accounted for 30 per cent of total external debt, followed by NRI deposits at 18 per cent and multilateral debt at 13.7 per cent.
There was a 17.5 percent rise in the short-term debt, comprising 24.4 per cent of the external debt, from end-March to $91.9 billion.
Also, external-debt to GDP ratio stood at 20.6 per cent as of December 31, 2012 versus 19.7 per cent as of March 31, 2012.
External debt of the government or the sovereign stood at $81.7 billion, (21.7 per cent of total external debt) at end-December 2012 as against $81.9 billion (23.7 per cent) at end-March 2012.
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