India's mood and Moody’s rating for the country has improved: Govt

New Delhi, Nov 12: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the global ratings agency, Moody's has reassessed India's growth numbers after looking at the rapid COVID-19 recovery in the country.

Addressing a press conference, Sitaraman said, "I would like to announce a few new measures in the series of stimulus announcements we have been doing... there are quite a few indicators showing a distinct recovery in the economy."

"Markets are on a record-high and India's foreign exchange reserves are at US $560 billion. India has made a strong comeback economically. The RBI has said that India will do better in the fourth quarter. So the mood in the country, as well as Moody's rating for India, has improved," said Minister of State for finance, Anurag Thakur, who addressed the press conference along with Sitharaman.

On Thursday, Moody's raised the country's GDP forecast for the calendar year 2020 upwards to -8.9 per cent contraction from -9.6 per cent contraction forecast earlier.

The report released by Moody's Investors Service attributed the reason behind better growth to the falling of coronavirus cases in the country.

According to Moody's, recovery has been patchy in India as its economy had the biggest contraction - 24% year-over-year in the second quarter - as a result of a long and strict nationwide lockdown.

Although restrictions have eased only slowly and in phases, and localised restrictions in containment zones remain, the report said that, "The steady decline in new and active cases since September, if maintained, should enable further easing of restrictions. We, therefore, forecast a gradual improvement in economic activity over the coming quarters. However, slow credit intermediation will hamper the pace of recovery because of an already weakened financial sector."