Rupee hits three-week high on Bloomberg report on S&P

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee strengthened on Friday to a three-week high against the dollar after Bloomberg quoted an analyst at Standard & Poor's calling the government's target to lower the fiscal deficit a positive for the country's ratings.

"The fiscal policy stance has been a constraining factor for India's sovereign ratings for some time," Bloomberg quoted S&P's associate director of sovereign ratings, Agost Benard, as saying.

"If authorities can deliver on their fiscal goals resulting in a lower debt and interest burden that would benefit India's credit fundamentals," he was also quoted as saying.

The partially convertible rupee rose to as high as 60.3750 per dollar, its strongest level since July 31, but had eased to 60.45/46 by 12:33 p.m. It closed at 60.61/62 on Thursday.

The government has a fiscal deficit target of 4.1 percent of gross domestic product for the year ending in March 2015.

(Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)