India Bond Market Reaches USD 2.47 Trillion: Report

Mumbai, Dec 21 (PTI) Total outstanding bonds traded in the domestic market inched up to USD 2.47 trillion as of September 2023 from USD 2.34 trillion in March 2023, says a report.

While all bonds are debt, all debts are not bonds, as bank loans and loans from multilateral agencies like the World Bank, IMF and the Asian Development Bank are debt but not bonds.

Of the total bonds outstanding, the Central government bonds (G-secs) stood at USD 1.34 trillion as of the second quarter (Q2), up from USD 1.06 trillion in the March 2023 quarter, Vishal Goenka, cofounder of Indiabonds.com, said quoting the Reserve Bank data.

On the other hand, the country's total external debt, which are government and corporate bonds as well as their loans from lenders, rose marginally to USD 629.1 billion as of June 2023, although the debt-GDP ratio declined to 18.6 per cent, according to RBI data.

External debt rose by USD 4.7 billion from USD 624.3 billion in March 2023, the RBI data showed and as a percentage of GDP it declined to 18.6 per cent in June 2023 from 18.8 per cent in March 2023.

The report on bonds by Indiabonds.com, which is a Sebi-registered online bond platform that provides investing solutions, is the collation of the official data from the RBI, the Clearing Corporation, and the Securities and Exchange Board.

At USD 1.34 trillion, the G-secs have the highest share at 46.04 per cent of total bonds outstanding, while states' bonds constituted 24.4 per cent, or USD 604 billion, says the report.

Treasury bills stood at USD 111 billion constituting 4.51 per cent of the total debt, it added.

The third biggest component of the bond pile is the corporate bonds worth 21.52 per cent of the total at USD 531 billion in Q2.

Then there are USD 17 billion of Uday bonds, USD 15 billion worth of special securities and USD 53 billion of floating rate bonds as of the September quarter of this fiscal.

In the June 2023 quarter, the central government debt stood at USD 1.30 trillion, 44.94 per cent of the total, which jumped from USD 1.06 trillion or 45.24 per cent of the total.

The states' debt bonds at USD 597 billion or 24.51 per cent of the total, and that of corporate bonds stood at USD537 billion or 21.86 per cent in March 2023. These two figures respectively stood at USD548 billion or 24.85 per cent and USD510 billion or 21.83 per cent in the March 2023 quarter.