India: End-March external debt rises to $485.6 bln from year ago

MUMBAI India’s end-March external debt was at $ 485.6 billion, up $ 10.6 billion from end-March 2015, the Reserve Bank of India said in a release on Thursday.

The figure was up $ 5.4 billion from the $ 480.2 billion registered at end-December 2015.

The increase in external debt was mainly due to a rise in non-resident Indian deposits, but was partly offset by valuation gains resulting from the appreciation of the dollar versus the rupee and other major currencies.

The share of short-term debt residual maturity to India’s forex reserves stood at 42.6 percent of the total external debt at end-March, compared with 38.2 percent at end-March 2015, the RBI said.

(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury, Swati Bhat, and Abhirup Roy; Writing by Rafael Nam; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)