MUMBAI, February 19: The finance ministry has suggested that Moody's Investors Service, the international rating agency, should review its rating for India only after the general elections, finance secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Thursday in Mumbai.Singh, who was in the city to address a national seminar on south-east Asian meltdown vis a vis Indian response, organised by Ficci, said he had met the officials of Moody's recently and pleaded for the review of the sovereign rating after the elections.
``Let us see, what they are doing,'' he said adding that he felt that the agency might just review the existing rating and not downgrade it.
The talk of the downgrading the India's sovereign rating by the Moody's is more due to the economic situation in south-east Asia or overall global economic situation than some economic deficiency in the country. The rating agency had put India's sovereign rating and ratings of several corporates on review for a possible downgrade in January.
The rationale forthe move is the diminishing reform impetus in the country's worsening public sector debt and current account deficit and its poor export performance, it said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
