ECB and FCCB approvals decline in August

The value of external commercial borrowings (ECB) and foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCB) approvals more than halved to $0.75 billion in August from $2.14 billion in the preceding month.

It declaimed around 65 per cent in over a month. This is the lowest amount in the last four months, the levels last seen in April 2015. The value of these approvals raised through automatic route declined to $0.44 billion from $0.69 billion, and via the approval route fell to $0.31 billion from $1.45 billion over the last two months. Access of funds under automatic route does not require Reserve bank Of India (RBI) or Government of India approval.  As per the data by the RBI, the number of ECB/FCCB approvals stood at 55 in August as compared to 62 in July. On an average there were 57 approvals during the first four months in 2015-16.

On a cumulative basis, during April-August 2015, the amount raised through ECB and ECCB route fell to 14.9 per cent to $9.18 billion, year-on-year. The number of approvals declined around 8 per cent to 282 over the same period, primarily driven by the decline in the amount raised through the automatic route.