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Rating agencies follow inconsistent standards to rate India, China: Subramanian

12 May 2017 Evaluate

Citing clear improvement in India’s economic fundamentals, the Chief economic advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian has slammed global rating agencies for not upgrading the country’s ranking and said that they are following ‘inconsistent’ standards while rating India and China. He also said that India has been placed in the lowest investment grade by the ratings agencies which lead to higher cost of borrowing in the global markets due to investor risk perceptions associated with it.

Subramanian has said that in recent years, rating agencies have maintained India's ‘BBB-’ rating, notwithstanding clear improvements in their economic fundamentals such as inflation, growth, and current account performance. At the same time, China's rating has actually been upgraded to ‘AA-’, even though its fundamentals have deteriorated.

He also said ‘In other words, the ratings agencies have been inconsistent in their treatment of China and India. Given this record --- what we call Poor Standards -- my question is: why do we take these rating analysts seriously at all?’ Pointing out instances where global ratings agencies have fallen short of expectations, he said they consistently fail to provide advance warnings of financial crisis and downgrade a country after the fact. In the US, they had given AAA ratings to mortgage-ridden securities, which later dragged down the economy and created a crisis.

Meanwhile, the global agency Fitch Ratings has retained the ‘BBB-’ sovereign rating-the lowest investment grade-on India holding that weak public finances continue to constrain India’s ratings. Though, the agency also retained stable outlook for the country’s ratings. Besides, Moody's and Standard & Poor's also have not upgraded India, contending that the government needs to do more. In November, Moody's refused to upgrade India, saying the economic initiatives of PM Modi's government are yet to produce results.


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