Fitch Ratings affirms India’s sovereign rating at ‘BBB-’, maintain negative outlook

23 Apr 2021 Evaluate

Fitch Ratings in its latest report has said the resurgence of COVID-19 infections may delay India’s economic recovery, but won’t derail it. The rating agency has affirmed India’s sovereign rating at ‘BBB-’ and maintained a negative outlook, reflecting ‘lingering uncertainty around the debt trajectory’. It projected a 12.8 per cent recovery in GDP in the fiscal year ending March 2022 (FY22), moderating to 5.8 per cent in FY23, from an estimated contraction of 7.5 per cent in 2020-21. Fitch had in June last year revised outlook for India to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’ on grounds that the coronavirus pandemic had significantly weakened the country’s growth outlook and exposed the challenges associated with a high public debt burden.

India enjoyed ‘BBB-’ rating since the upgrade in August 2006, but the outlook has oscillated between stable and negative. It said ‘India’s rating balances a still strong medium-term growth outlook and external resilience from solid foreign-reserve buffers, against high public debt, a weak financial sector and some lagging structural factors. The Negative Outlook reflects lingering uncertainty around the debt trajectory following the sharp deterioration in India’s public finance metrics due to the pandemic shock from a previous position of limited fiscal headroom.’ Wider fiscal deficits and the government plans for only a gradual narrowing of the deficit put greater onus on India’s ability to return to high levels of GDP growth over the medium term to stabilise and bring down the debt ratio.

Fitch said the recent surge in coronavirus cases poses increasing downside risks to the FY22 outlook. The report said ‘This second wave of virus cases may delay the recovery, but it is unlikely in Fitch’s view to derail it. In particular, the strong rebound in 2H FY21 and ongoing policy support underpin our expectations for recovery.’ It said ‘We expect pandemic-related restrictions to remain localised and less stringent than the national lockdown imposed in 2Q20, and the vaccine rollout has been stepped up’. It also said ‘Fiscal metrics have deteriorated sharply in the context of the macroeconomic shock and efforts to support health outcomes and the economic recovery. We estimate a general government deficit of 14 per cent of GDP in FY21 (excluding divestment) from 7.3 per cent in FY20, consistent with a deficit of 9.5 per cent for the central government’.

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