Rating agencies must consider medium-term growth prospects: CII

NEW DELHI: Credit rating agencies must take into account medium-term growth prospects as well as the reform measures taken by India to contain current account and fiscal deficits before deciding on its rating, CII said today.

The industry body's comments follow reports that global rating agency S&P sees more than one-in-three chance of a downgrade of the country's rating.

"The Indian economy should not be viewed through a prism of current account and fiscal deficits alone. Rating agencies should look at the fundamentals of the economy and the medium-term prospects," CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said said in a statement.

Stressing that global factors were responsible for the recent slide in the rupee, he said: "The government has also assured that the CAD would be fully financed. Our exports have started looking up and trade deficit has narrowed. CII also expects the economy to pick up during the second half of this fiscal".

Over the last one year, the government has ushered in an array of reform measures to further open up the economy, and has contributed to fiscal consolidation as well as containment of current account deficit (CAD), he added.

The country's policymakers have also dismissed the latest comment by Standard & Poor's (S&P) that there was a more than one-in-three chance of ratings downgrade in the next one to two years, saying there was "no chance" of this prospect.

Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram said the country has taken several measures to stabilise the economy despite the turmoil in the global economy.

He said he wondered as to which mathematical model was relied upon by S&P to come to the statistical conclusion of a potential downgrade.

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, who took over the reins of the central bank today, said there was "nothing new" in S&P statement of one-third chance of India rating downgrade.