“7.8% GDP Growth, Rising Capex: Why JCR Lifted Bharat to A-“, BeatsInBrief, 3 Sep 2026.
“Japan Credit Rating Agency (JCR) upgraded India’s sovereign credit rating on September 2 from BBB+ to A-, assigning a Stable outlook and simultaneously raising the country ceiling from A- to A. The upgrade marks India’s return to the single-A tier with an international rating agency for the first time since Moody’s assigned an A2 rating in 1988, a status India lost during the 1990-91 Balance of Payments crisis.
For JCR, this ends nearly two decades of holding India at BBB+ and positions the country alongside emerging market peers like Indonesia and the Philippines, while widening the gap with lower-rated issuers such as Brazil.
Why JCR Made the Call
The agency’s rationale rested on four pillars. Real GDP grew 7.7% in FY2026 and accelerated to 7.8% in the first quarter of FY2027, outperforming both market consensus and RBI projections, driven by private consumption and public capital investment. Banking sector health showed marked improvement, with gross non-performing assets falling to 1.8% by end-March 2026, down from double digits in earlier credit cycles, a result JCR attributed to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and stronger RBI oversight. Fiscal management earned particular praise: the central government trimmed its deficit from 4.7% to 4.4% of GDP in FY2026 while shifting spending away from current expenditure and subsidies toward higher-multiplier infrastructure capex. External buffers rounded out the picture, with foreign exchange reserves comfortably exceeding short-term debt obligations and external debt held at a manageable 18-20% of GDP…………..”
Read the full article at BeatsInBrief.
