Liberalization of external commercial borrowings

External commercial borrowing (ECB) can take several forms: bank loans; buyers’ credit; suppliers’ credit; securitized instruments; credit from official export credit agencies and international capital markets; and commercial borrowings from multilateral financial institutions, such as the International Finance Corporation and ADB.

The government’s ECB policy envisages and outlines the ways in which Indian companies are entitled to borrow funds from prescribed overseas entities as a source of financial assistance for enhancing their existing capacity and also for fresh investment.

The regulation of debt raised from ECB funding has been governed by standards of economic external debt management, with the aim of providing increased flexibility and access to borrowings by Indian commercial houses by maintaining low service costs and long maturity periods.

Shardul Thacker is a partner with Mulla & Mulla & Craigie Blunt & Caroe in Mumbai.