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FinObservatory

External balance sheets

India

In 2024, India had a net international investment position of -33.5% of GDP, owning 26.1% abroad and owing 59.6%. Across the four instrument legs it reports in 2024, 68.3% is equity-like (direct investment and portfolio equity) and the remainder is portfolio debt and other investment.

The balance sheet through time

YearNet positionAssetsLiabilitiesReservesCurrent accountCrisis
1970-14.5%1.6%16.1%1.2%-0.6%sovereign debt
1975-12.5%1.7%14.2%1.0%-0.1%sovereign debt
1980-7.3%4.8%12.1%3.7%-0.9%
1985-13.8%3.7%17.6%2.7%-1.7%
1990-24.6%2.1%26.8%0.5%-2.2%
1995-23.5%7.1%30.6%4.9%-1.5%banking
2000-17.0%12.2%29.2%8.0%-1.0%
2005-15.6%19.7%35.3%15.8%-1.2%
2010-23.8%23.7%47.5%16.1%-3.2%
2015-27.9%24.6%52.5%15.9%-1.1%
2020-30.2%30.8%61.0%20.5%1.2%
2024-33.5%26.1%59.6%14.6%-0.8%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 All figures as a share of GDP. Every fifth year shown, plus the first and last. Crisis column is the FinObservatory atlas, deduplicated across its five chronologies. Methodology

What it owes, and in what form

The composition of external liabilities. Direct investment and portfolio equity are equity-like: their value falls when the country does badly, so the foreign investor shares the loss. Portfolio debt and other investment (mostly cross-border bank lending) are fixed claims that do not.

YearDirect investmentPortfolio equityPortfolio debtOther investment
1995first7.0%9.4%3.9%79.8%
2024latest23.5%44.8%5.2%26.6%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 Each leg as a share of the four legs, which sum to 100 percent. EWN's total-liabilities aggregate also carries a financial-derivatives leg, left out here on both sides of the ratio, so these shares describe a smaller stock than reported total liabilities wherever that derivative leg is non-zero. First and latest year with a complete instrument split (30 years available). Methodology

Bilateral direct-investment positions

Where India's direct-investment positions are located, and where inward positions come from. These are annual position stocks, not flows. The reported World observation supplies each total; the ranked counterpart rows describe its published geography and can be incomplete or confidential.

Outward direct investment

Positions abroad, grouped by the immediate destination economy.

Official reported World total

$136.27B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
Singapore SGP$30.27B
United States USA$20.97B
United Kingdom GBR$17.43B
Netherlands NLD$13.12B
United Arab Emirates ARE$11.70B
Mauritius MUS$10.14B
Switzerland CHE$5.71B
Hong Kong HKG$1.54B
Jersey JEY$1.39B
Germany DEU$1.36B

Coverage in 2024: 232 named economies among 257 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: ATF, BES, CCK, CXR, GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, MYT, NFK, PCN, SGS, TKL, TX374, TX585, TX871, TX872, TX983, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Inward direct investment

Positions in this economy, grouped by the immediate investor economy.

Official reported World total

$803.05B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
United States USA$160.66B
Singapore SGP$114.45B
Mauritius MUS$106.51B
United Kingdom GBR$89.74B
Netherlands NLD$72.57B
Japan JPN$67.31B
Switzerland CHE$45.90B
Germany DEU$29.14B
France FRA$19.60B
South Korea KOR$14.79B

Coverage in 2024: 232 named economies among 257 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: ATF, BES, CCK, CXR, GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, MYT, NFK, PCN, SGS, TKL, TX374, TX585, TX871, TX872, TX983, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Reported versus counterpart-derived

Official reported data (O) are the reporter economy's submission. Counterpart-derived data (SCC) are IMF staff calculations from counterpart submissions. They are alternative views of the same direction, not addends, so they are shown side by side and never summed.

DirectionOfficial reported (O)Counterpart-derived (SCC)
outward$136.27B (2024)$133.51B (2024)
inward$803.05B (2024)$469.10B (2024)

Source: IMF Direct Investment Positions by Counterpart Economy Values are full US dollars, scaled only for display. Top 10 named economies shown. Methodology

Reading this page

The atlas records 19 distinct crisis episodes for India since 1970. The crisis column marks them beside the balance sheet, and it is deliberately left to the reader to look. This page does not narrate a causal story about deteriorating positions and subsequent crises, because for most countries no such story survives inspection, and the cross-country table on the index shows why.

EWN is a reconstruction. Where a country never reported a position, the authors estimate it, and the file carries no flag separating a reported cell from an estimated one, so this page cannot mark them either.

Methodology