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Journalism of Courage
The government said that as many as seven banks in India,including SBI and ICICI Bank,had exposure worth USD 537 million in Dubai World and other group companies at the time of the Emirate’s debt crisis in November 2009.
The exposure of the Indian Scheduled Commercial Banks in India to Dubai World,Nakheel Reality and its Group companies as on November 30,2009,was USD 454.03 million for fund-based facilities and USD 82.94 million for non-fund based facilities,Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena informed the Lok Sabha.
The country’s largest lender State Bank of India had exposure to the tune of USD 50 million,while Bank of Baroda had an exposure of USD 200 million.
Besides,private sector lender ICICI Bank had an exposure of over USD 28 million and HDFC Bank of USD 4.23 million.
Other foreign banks present in India with an exposure in Dubai are HSBC (about USD 44 million),Standard Chartered Bank (over 120 million) and Citi Bank (USD 86 million),Meena said.
In November last year,the Dubai government owned Dubai World had asked its creditors for six more months to repay its debts as asset prices were coming down.
Dubai World has total debts of USD 59 billion. This raised concerns over the financial health of the once financially strong Gulf country.
“The government is of the view that the recent global financial crisis has proved the soundness and resilience of our banking system,which has regained and sustained economic growth momentum in the country,” he added.
He added that the Indian public sector banks are adequately capitalised and that they are maintaining higher Capital-to-Risk Weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR) to meet any additional provisioning requirement arising out of any unforeseen higher NPA slippages.
