Recently, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) of India Krishnamurthy Subramanian said that it is the right opportunity for the country to raise funds through overseas sovereign bonds at a much cheaper rate compared with those in the domestic market.
Apart from the CEA’s viewpoint, an announcement by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget 2019 speech was also that “India’s sovereign external debt to GDP is among the lowest globally at less than 5%.
Sovereign debt is a debt issued by the national government generally in a foreign currency in order to raise funds or to finance the country’s fiscal deficit or to fund development projects.
The stability of the government of the issuing country and confidence in the currency among others are some of the parameters which can be considered by an investor before buying the bonds.
Countries with high-credit-worthiness will pay less interest on such bonds whereas countries with low-credit-worthiness will pay high interest.
This is why it is being said that India is in the right zone to issue the sovereign bonds now after five years of a stable and strong government, followed by an even bigger mandate for the incumbent.