The Finance Ministry in its 'India's External Debt: A Status Report: 2019-2020' indicated that India's total external debt increased by 2.8 percent to $558.5 billion as on March 31, 2020, mainly due to a rise commercial borrowings. The external debt stood at $543 billion at end-March 2019. The ratio of foreign currency reserves to external debt stood at 85.5 percent as at end-March 2020, as compared to 76.0 percent a year ago. External debt as a ratio to GDP rose marginally to 20.6 percent as at end-March 2020 from 19.8 percent a year ago.
Compared to end-March 2019, the report stated that sovereign debt shrank 3 percent to reach $100.9 billion. This decrease was primarily due to a fall in FII investment in G-Sec - the second largest constituent - by 23.3 percent to $21.6 billion from $28.3 billion a year ago. Loans from multilateral and bilateral sources under external assistance - the largest constituent of the sovereign debt - grew 4.9 percent to $87.2 billion. On the other hand, non-sovereign debt rose 4.2 percent to $457.7 billion mainly due to an increase in commercial borrowings - the largest constituent - by 6.7 percent to $220.3 billion. Outstanding NRI deposits - the second largest constituent - at $130.6 billion was almost equal to the level a year ago.
According to the report, in most emerging markets, as the economy expands, foreign debt typically accumulates to address a shortage of domestic savings, India is no exception to this phenomenon. Economic activity in India influences the accumulation of external debt, reflecting the policy over the years of enabling the private sector to access foreign debt and this was reflecting as the stock of non-sovereign debt (private sector debt) is four times that of the sovereign debt at end-March 2020.
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