At end-December 2015, India's external debt stock stood at US$ 480.2 billion, recording an increase of US$ 4.9 billion (1.0 per cent) over the level at end-March 2015. The rise in external debt during the period was due to long-term external debt particularly commercial borrowings and NRI deposits. However, on a sequential basis, total external debt at end-December 2015 declined by US$ 1.2 billion from the end-September 2015 level.

Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance has been compiling and releasing quarterly statistics on India's external debt for the quarters ending September and December every year.

Long-term debt at end-December 2015 was US$ 398.6 billion, showing an increase of US$ 8.8 billion (2.3 per cent) over the level at end-March 2015. Short-term external debt witnessed a decline of 4.6 per cent and stood at US$ 81.6 billion at end-December 2015.

At end-December 2015, long-term external debt accounted for 83.0 per cent of India's total external debt, while the remaining (17 per cent) was short-term debt. Component-wise, the share of commercial borrowings stood highest at 38.2 per cent of total external debt, followed by NRI deposits (25.5 per cent) and multilateral debt (11.1 per cent).

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