Finance Minister rejects S&P report

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, on Monday, rejected the Standard and Poor's report that India could be the first BRIC country to falter and said there would be a turnaround in growth prospects in the coming months.

Hours after S&P threatened to downgrade India's credit rating to speculative grade with highly loaded political remarks, Mr. Mukherjee said the government was fully seized of the current situation and expressed confidence that there would be a turnaround in growth prospects in the coming months.

“This (S&P report) is not based on a fresh rating action. S&P had issued India's sovereign credit rating on April 25 reaffirming the country's long term sovereign credit rating at BBB(—), although it revised the outlook from negative to stable,” he said in the statement.

Between April and now, the Finance Minister said there were no significant events to indicate that the economy's vulnerability to shocks had increased though growth numbers for the fourth quarter 2011-12 were below expectations.

He said the S&P's recent report suggested that the main factor that would determine investment grade credit rating was the government's reaction to potentially slower growth and greater vulnerability to economic shocks.

BRIC represents grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China.