The country's total outstanding external debt has gone up marginally from $112.5 billion at the end of March 2004 to $112.6 billion at the end of June 2004. Of this, the proportion of short-term debt has gone up, while that of long-term debt has come down.
According to creditor classification, bilateral debt declined by $340 million over the quarter, from $17.49 billion to $17.15 billion. Share of bilateral debt in total external debt was 15.2 per cent. Multilateral debt rose from $29.6 billion to $29.7 billion over the quarter.
NRI deposits declined by $735 million, from $31.2 billion to $30.8 billion at the end of Q1 and accounted for 27 per cent of total debt, as against 28 per cent at the end of the previous fiscal. Export credit and commercial borrowings, however, registered small changes.
Short-term debt rose from $4.7 billion at the end of the previous fiscal to $5.9 billion at the end of the first quarter, on account of trade-related credits reflecting buoyant imports, according to the finance ministry.
Long-term debt, on the other hand, went down from $107.8 billion at the end of March 2004 to $106.7 billion at the end of the first quarter this fiscal.
The rising levels of short-term debt were also reflected in a worsening of the short-term debt-to-total external debt ratio. The ratio, which had improved from 10.2 per cent at the end of March 1991 to 4.2 per cent at end-March 2004, inched up to 5.2 per cent at end-June 2004.
The ratio of short-term debt to foreign exchange reserves rose from 4.2 per cent at the end of the previous fiscal to 4.9 per cent at the end of Q1 this fiscal.
Concessional debt fell from $40.30 billion at end-March 2004 to $39.82 billion at end-June 2004.
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