Continuing to increase its exposure, India’s holdings of American government securities touched $144.7 billion at the end of 2017. According to the latest data from the US Treasury Department, the country remained the 12th largest overseas holder of such securities, just behind oil rich Saudi Arabia, whose holding stood at $147.4 billion in December 2017. It also noted that the exposure of India to these securities has been on the rise during last year except for a few months when the total exposure had declined.
According to the data, the holding of India went up to $144.7 billion in December last, a rise of little over $26 billion compared to the year-ago period. At the end of December 2016, India's exposure was to the tune of $118.2 billion. It pointed out that while holding at the end of December is at a one-year high compared to December 2016, the exposure was slightly higher at $145.1 billion in September 2017. It also showed that neighbouring country China topped the list with holdings worth $1.18 trillion as of December-end followed by Japan whose exposure stood at $1.06 trillion during the same period. Ireland was at the third place with holdings worth $326.5 billion, followed by Cayman Islands ($269.9 billion) and Brazil ($256.8 billion) at fourth and fifth places, respectively. Among the BRIC countries, India had the third largest exposure while that of Russia was lower at $102.2 billion.
The Treasury Department had said that earlier this month, preliminary data from the June 2017 benchmark survey of foreign portfolio holdings of US securities showed that the total value of such holding was $18.44 trillion. Out of the total, $7.19 trillion was in equities, $10.29 trillion in long-term debt securities and $954 billion in short-term debt securities. Besides, the previous survey, conducted as of June 30, 2016, measured the value of total foreign holdings of US securities at $17,139 billion, with holdings of $6,186 billion in US equities, $10,044 billion in US long-term debt securities and $909 billion in US short-term debt securities.
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