 "India further trims US treasury holdings to $57.9 billion")
India, which is among the top-20 holders of American government securities, has been reducing its holdings since August 2012, even as neighbouring China is purchasing more of these bills.
India had held American treasury bills to the tune of $57.9 billion in December last year, lower than $58.8 billion owned in November, according to latest data from the US Treasury Department. In October, the same stood at $59.6 billion, which was slightly lower than $59.7 billion recorded in September.
India's holdings of American government securities had touched $60.6 billion in August. However, the holdings in December 2012 were much higher than in December 2011 when it stood at $43.5 billion.
Going by official data, India is the 18th largest holder of these securities while China topped the table at the end of December. China's holdings touched $1.202 trillion, closely followed by Japan that reached $1.120 trillion during that month.
Among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations, India has the lowest exposure to American securities. At the end of December, Brazil owned US treasury bills worth $251.5 billion, while that of Russia touched $157.6 billion. The US is going through a tough phase. Besides slow growth, the country is battling high debt levels. In the last three months of 2012, the American gross domestic product shrank 0.1 per cent.
The contraction — first time since the second quarter of 2009 when there was recession — was mainly on account of sharp cuts in government spending.
"Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labour and property located in the US — decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012," the US Commerce Department had said in January.
Defence spending was slashed more than 22 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Amid global uncertainties, the US economic output for the first time in more than three years shrank 0.1 per cent in the 2012 December quarter.