New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund on February 13 patted India for its "comfortable" foreign exchange reserves and said the country was not in need of any assistance from it.

"India does not need any financing from IMF considering that the country has $ 73 billion of forex reserves," the Washington-based multilateral institution's representative in India, James Gordon, said, at a seminar on "The Role of IMF in India", organised by The Indian Institute of Planning and Management.

With a foreign exchange reserve of $ 73 billion mop up within one decade, he said, "Frankly, something must have been done right."

Considering that India's foreign exchange reserves of $ 73 billion could sustain 15 months import, Gordon said, "It is extremely comfortable."

India had last borrowed from the IMF during the balance of payment crisis in the early 1990s and since the country had fully repaid its loans, the IMF's role had been "considerably" scaled down.

"As of now, IMF's role in India is that of surveillance," he said, adding that its surveillance had sharpened focus on those economies that carried vulnerability to crises.

On India's total debt position, with a short term debt of $ 10 billion and a huge forex reserves, the IMF official said, "The short-term credit is not that big a problem for India," even as he expressed concern over the rising proportion of internal debt to gross domestic product (GDP) and rising fiscal deficit.

India's cautious approach on liberalising capital account convertibility also came in for praise from the IMF.

PTI