SINGAPORE (Standard & Poor's) June 30, 2003--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today affirmed its 'BB/B' foreign currency and 'BB+/B' local currency sovereign ratings on the Republic of India. The outlook is negative, reflecting continuing difficulty for the government in addressing its fiscal problems and structural reforms. "Rising public debt, projected at about 95% of GDP this year, and growing fiscal inflexibility from running general government deficits of about 10% of GDP over the past few years, are the most pressing issues affecting the sovereign's creditworthiness," said Takahira Ogawa, credit analyst at Standard & Poor's. Compounding this is the inability of India's political class, cutting across all parties, to reignite reform (particularly of the public sector) and to curb the borrowings
