India ratings not impacted by foreign outflows: Moody's

Moody's said India's credit rating was unlikely to be impacted by the recently strong foreign investor sales of shares and bonds over concerns about a tax on overseas funds, despite the uncertainty being created over the country's tax regime.

"India's external balances are strong relative to peers on some accounts, and can withstand the current outflows, for instance, due to the high level of foreign-exchange reserves," Thomas Rookmaaker, director at Fitch's Asia-Pacific Sovereign Group, wrote in an email to Reuters.

Fitch affirmed its "BBB-minus" and "stable" outlook on India last month.

Meanwhile, Moody's, which revised India's "Baa3" sovereign rating outlook to "positive" from "stable" last month, said its outlook reflects a 2-5 year horizon, rather than near-term growth outlook.

India's positive outlook "is about the next two to three to five years," Moody's sovereign rating analyst Atsi Sheth told Agency in a telephone interview.

"If reforms are implemented as planned, that would be quite positive."