S&P lowers India's outlook to negative

Mumbai, April 25 (IANS) Ratings agency Standard & Poor's Wednesday lowered its outlook on India to negative from stable, and warned of a ratings downgrade citing deteriorating economic indicators and slow progress on fiscal reforms in the backdrop of a "weakened political setting".

Standard & Poor's credit analyst Takahira Ogawa said there was one-in-three likelihood of India's sovereign ratings downgrade.

The ratings agency kept India's long-term rating unchanged at BBB-, which is the lowest investment grade rating.

"The outlook revision reflects our view of at least a one-in-three likelihood of a downgrade if the external position continues to deteriorate, growth prospects diminish, or progress on fiscal reforms remains slow in a weakened political setting," Ogawa said.

Ogawa said India's real per capital gross domestic product (GDP) growth was likely to remain 5.3 percent in 2012-13 as compared to around 6 percent in the previous fiscal.