India's total external debt stock at end September 2008 stood at US $ 222.61 billion, which is marginally lower than the level of US $ 223.81 billion at end June 2008. In terms of components, long term external debt constituted around 77.5 per cent of the total debt and was US $ 172.51 billion at end September 2008 (after posting a decline of US $ 2.69 billion in the second quarter of 2008-09). The quarter witnessed moderation/decline in NRI deposits, commercial borrowings; however export credit increased in the period. Short term debt which includes trade related credits, FII investments in government securities and external liabilities of the banking systems increased over the second quarter of 2008-09 by US $ 1.49 billion to reach a level of US $ 50.10 billion.
The share of private debt in total external debt has increased over a period of time, which continued during the quarter ended September 2008 as well. Private debt accounted for US$ 166.03 billion (74.6 per cent) and Government debt amounted to US $ 56.58 billion (25.4 per cent) of total external debt as at the end of September 2008.
Based on residual maturity, total long term external debt stood at US $ 130.69 billion (58.7 per cent) and short-term debt at US$ 91.92 billion (41.3 per cent) at end-September 2008.
In line with the international best practices, there has been a continuous effort to improve the coverage of India's external debt statistics. During the quarter, the coverage of the country's short-term external debt has been further improved by inclusion of (i) Nostro/Vostro liabilities of the banking sector, (ii) balances under non-resident rupee accounts maintained by foreign central banks/international institutions with Reserve Bank of India, and (iii) foreign central banks/international institutions' investment in securities/treasury bills maintained with Reserve Bank of India. These have been worked out for the period w.e.f March 2007 and included under the relevant component of short-term debt for the quarter ended September 2008.As a result of this, total external debt stock data has also been revised for all the quarters beginning March 2007 through June 2008.
The currency composition of external debt reveals that US dollar denominated debt accounted for 56.9 per cent followed by Indian Rupee (16.4 per cent), Japanese Yen (11.6 per cent), SDR (9.6 per cent) and Euro (3.4 per cent) and others (2.1 per cent). The ratio of foreign exchange reserves to total external debt as at end September 2008 stood at a comfortable level of 128.6 per cent. As per the information relating to countries whose external debt data are reported in the Quarterly External Debt Statistics (QEDS) of the World Bank, India has the lowest level of external debt to GDP ratio.
The complete text of this report is available on the Ministry of Finance Website : https://dea.gov.in 
The release on balance of payments data for July - September 2008 is available on the Reserve Bank of India's website : http://www.rbi.org.in
