India's sovereign rating upgrade likely in 2015: Report

Improving external balances and government actions might drive a sovereign rating upgrade for the country during the current calendar year, according to a report by Deutsche Bank.

It was despite the fact that market was not yet factoring in a rating upgrade, the report said.

“We assign a high likelihood of a sovereign ratings upgrade for India as most macro indicators have exhibited improvements in the past two years,” DB India’s Managing Director and Head of Research Abhay Laijawala said, while unveiling ‘India equity strategy: 2015 outlook’ here on Thursday. The rating upgrade for the country will happen shortly, however it will depend on the forthcoming annual Budget, he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre will present its first full-fledged annual budget for fiscal 2015-16 next month. Talking about the key risk areas for the country’s economy, the report says they will be guided by external factors rather than that of domestic ones.  “Key risks for the country's economy are more external than domestic ones in nature,” DB India’s Vice-President Abhishek Saraf said, adding, “We do see four areas of risks haunting the growth of the country’s economy.”

The four risk areas include stronger than anticipated slowdown in Europe and China, stronger than anticipated normalisation by US Fed and oil price holding, he added.

The economy has indeed witnessed a turnaround since 2012, when it faced imminent threat of ratings downgrade from global rating agencies.

"The upward revision in the outlook from negative to stable in September 2014 was a first development suggesting a perceptibility improving outlook for the Indian economy. While market is not yet factoring in a rating upgrade, we believe that rating agencies may surprise markets by a likely rating upgrade," the report said.

"The Sensex may reach to the level of 33,000 by the end of the current calendar year. We are setting year-end (December 2015) Sensex target at 33,000 (imputed Nifty target of 9,936), implying an upside of 23 per cent from current levels," it said.

The cut in global crude oil will help the country's economy to grow further, the report said.

Price of crude oil per barrel which was at USD 90.8 a year ago has come down to the level of USD 74.3 at present, coupled by hike in excise duty on the crude which was likely to help government save oil subsidy amount to the tune of Rs 715 billion, which may be used for infrastructural development this year, the report said.

On rate cut, the report says the key policy rates may come down by 50 bps by March which will be followed by further rate cut by 50 bsp by the first half of the next fiscal.