MUMBAI: The foreign borrowings by the Indian companies in July 2019 soared by more than two-fold to $4.98 billion compared with $2.18 billion the Indian firms raised from overseas market during the same period last year, according to the data released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Of the total money borrowed by the domestic companies, $3.37 billion was through automatic route of external commercial borrowing (ECB), $1.56 billion via approval route of ECB and the rest of $50.9 million was raised by issuing masala or rupee denominated bonds by Toyota Financial Services India Ltd.
In the ECB category, the major borrowers that used the automatic route were Adani Ports And Special Economic Zone Ltd — which raised $750 million for rupee expenditure and $650 million for refinancing of earlier ECB, ONGC Videsh $500 million for other purposes.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and HPCL-Mittal Energy raised $150 million and $125 million, respectively for rupee expenditure.
Among others, Aditya Birla Housing Finance; L&T Finance; GACL-NALCO Alkalies & Chemicals and India Infoline Finance raised $100 each for on-lending purposes.
In the approval route of ECB, Reliance Industries (RIL) raised an amount totalling $912.87 million in three different tranches to meet rupee expenditure and import of capital goods while REC Ltd raised $650 million for on-lending.
Toyota Financial Services India was the only company that raised $50.86 million by issuing masala or rupee denominated bonds in the overseas market for the purpose of sub-lending.
