Of the total increase of US$ 18.2 billion in India's external debt at end-September 2009, the valuation effect on account of depreciation of US dollar against major international currencies accounted for US$ 8.3 billion or 45.6 per cent. The increase in total external debt also reflected the impact of inclusion of cumulative SDR allocations to India by International Monetary Fund as a long-term debt liability in external debt statistics.

Short-term external debt by original maturity stood at US$ 42.4 billion at end-September 2009, while total short-term debt by residual maturity was US$ 93.2 billion, accounting for 38.4 per cent of total external debt outstanding and 33.1 per cent of foreign exchange reserves at end-September 2009

Government (Sovereign) external debt was US$ 65.7 billion as at end-September 2009 as against US$ 55.9 billion as at end-March 2009. At this level, its share in total external debt was also higher at 27.1 per cent at end-September 2009 (24.9 per cent 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 51.4 per cent of total external debt at end-September 2009, followed by Indian rupee (16.6 per cent), Japanese Yen (13.6 per cent), SDR (12.0 per cent) and Euro (3.9 per cent).

The debt-service ratio i.e., the ratio of total debt service payments to current receipts worked out to 4.9 per cent during April-September 2009 as against 3.7 per cent for April-September 2008. The ratio of short-term external debt to foreign exchange reserves, which had increased from 14.8 per cent at end-March 2008 to 17.2 per cent at end-March 2009, was also lower at 15.1 per cent at end-September 2009.#