Global rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has said that India must boost growth, cut its fiscal deficit and fulfill promises of financial and fiscal reforms in order to justify an upgrade in a credit rating, currently lodged one rung above junk bond territory. Days ahead of the budget, S&P while listing what it needed to see to upgrade India's sovereign debt credit rating from 'BBB-minus' said that it expects the government's fiscal consolidation plan of progressively lower deficits to ease the debt and interest burden.
The rating agency further stated that crucial factors include higher growth in real per capita GDP, stronger fiscal and debt metrics, and a stronger external position or improved monetary policy setting, and the government's ability to fulfill its promises on key reforms will be critical to the country's success and the country's strong external balance sheet only partly offsets these weaknesses.
Adding that the country's fiscal and debt indicators are the weakest among peers like Brazil and Indonesia, it said that improvements in India's weak fiscal balance sheet are likely to be gradual and are thus unlikely to lead to a rating upgrade in the next three to five years. Though, it noted that India's high savings and investment rates along with the country's favourable demographics, with 87 per cent of the population aged 54 or below, could help it to grow quickly. The report said that India's strong external balance sheet was a support to the sovereign rating. S&P had raised India's credit rating outlook to 'stable' from 'negative' in September, citing the prospect of reforms.
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