The Monetary Policy Committee of RBI made its first policy statement yesterday. On the basis of an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation at its meeting today, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to reduce the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points from 6.5 per cent to 6.25 per cent with immediate effect.Overall the Committee sounded neutral on the macroeconomic and monetary conditions and very accommodative, as it expected the domestic momentum to get somewhat offset by the global slowdown.
The Committee said, “The momentum of growth is expected to quicken with a normal monsoon raising agricultural growth and rural demand, as well as by the stimulus to the urban consumption spending from the pay commission’s award. The accommodative stance of monetary policy and comfortable liquidity conditions should support a revival of credit to the productive sectors. The continuing sluggishness in world trade and smaller terms of trade gains than in the past point, however, to further slackening of external demand going forward. Accordingly, the projection of growth of real gross value added (GVA) for 2016-17 is retained at 7.6 per cent, with risks evenly balanced around it.”
In this context it is pertinent to note that the rating agency CRISIL in its latest report has observed material improvement in the credit quality of Indian companies during 1HFY17. As per the rating agency, for the first time in the last 10 semi-annual periods, the number of debt upgrades outnumbered the number of debt downgrades. The ratio for 1HFY17 stood at 1.2 compared with 0.8 2HFY16.
The report highlights that there were 646 upgrades to 553 downgrades in the first half. Upgrades were concentrated in the domestic consumption-linked sectors such as auto ancillaries and packaging, and in the exports-linked pharmaceutical sector. On other hand, downgrades were mainly in the investment-linked sectors such as construction, industrial machinery, real estate and metals. Financial (capital structure, debt protection and liquidity) and business (demand, profitability and working capital cycle) reasons contributed equally to rating actions.
CRISIL forecasts the overall ratio to stay above 1 in the near term led by an expected rural leg-up to private consumption following a near-normal monsoon. However, the agency warns that the debt downgrades in value terms are expected to be more in the second half because of continuing pressure on the investment-linked sectors.
In view of the rating agency the investment cycle is yet to pick up, there hasn’t been a material deleveraging in corporate balance sheets, and weak assets continue to mount in banking. The focus therefore has to be on the sustainability of this improvement in credit ratio.
Source: Adroit Financial