The net international investment position of India has improved by $12.04 billion to net liabilities of $48.60 bn for March-end 2004 as against a liability size of $60.64 bn for the same period last year.

InIP is the stock of external assets less the stock of external liabilities. It shows the difference between what an economy owns in relation to what it owes.

According to the RBI, the improvement in InIP of India has been on the back of depreciation of dollar to rupee. Reserve assets form a major part of the assets of India, which has gone up from $76.10 bn to $112.96 for the said period.

In liabilities, while loans remain stagnant around $62 bn, debt liabilities have fallen from $12.32 bn to $9.90bn owing to redemption of the Resurgent India Bonds.

Following this, both ratios of net to GDP and assets to GDP have improved from -- 12.82 to -- 8.37 and17.18 to 23.41 respectively.

Ration of external liabilities to GDP has come down from 33.31 to 31.77.

The growth rate of both assets and liabilities have gone up during 2003-04. While assets have gone up from 28.70 per cent in 2002-03 to 43.53 per cent in 2003-04, liabilities have moved up from 8.87 per cent to 18.79 per cent.

Major growth in assets have been on account of forex reserves and direct investment which respectively have increased by 30.43 per cent and 48.43 per cent from 26.19 per cent and 39.08 per cent for 2002-03.

In liabilties, the growth has been on account of portfolio investment, which has substantially gone up by 35.31 per cent from 2.76 per cent. Within portfolio investment, the growth is remarkable in the equity segment, which has gone up from 7.93 per cent to 69.02 per cent.