Representatives of global rating agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) today met senior finance ministry officials who impressed upon the agency the government's resolve to push economic reforms, promote growth and contain fiscal deficit at 4.1 per cent in 2014-15.
The meeting with S&P representatives was attended by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram, along with other senior officials.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Mayaram said, "There is general belief that we will see a fairly higher growth in the current fiscal than last year's 4.7 per cent. We are expecting FY'15 growth between 5.8 to 5.9 per cent as a reasonable target."
The Finance Ministry officials are reported to have informed the agency about the government's road map to reduce fiscal deficit to 3 per cent by 2016-17.
"We all believe numbers (fiscal deficit and current account deficit) are very credible. We will able to meet this year's fiscal deficit target," Mayaram said.
He expressed the hope that the government will be able achieve disinvestment target of around Rs 58,000 crore for the current fiscal.
"We believe that the disinvestment target for FY'15 is very reasonable because when we did numbers of Rs 58,000 crore the stock market were not doing well. And today if you look at stock marker, the market capitalisation has steeply risen in the last three months."
In order to promote growth and investment, Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, in his budget 2014-15 has announced host of measures to accelerate economic growth. The measures included allowing greater foreign direct investment in insurance and defence, increasing spending on infrastructure, and introducing tax incentives for savings and investment.
S&P currently rates India as 'BBB-', the lowest in the investment grade, with a negative outlook. The agency frequently updates its credit rating.
