Global rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) on Thursday warned that there could be more sovereign downgrades than upgrades globally in 2016 amid growing concerns over economic growth.
The warning from the rating agency comes in the wake of intensifying worries over slowdown in China and its impact on the global economy. The World Bank has lowered its 2016 growth forecast for the global economy to 2.9% this week from 3.3% in June last year.
The rating agency has been maintaining a rating of "BBB-" for India with a stable outlook for the past three years.
Overall, it had kept 25 countries under negative outlook and eight under positive by the end of December 2015. Currently, the agency rates 131 countries based on their economic profiles.
The outlook balance -- positive minus negative outlooks -- has declined to (-)17 from the seven-year high of (-)4 in June 2015, according to S&P Chief Sovereign Ratings Officer Moritz Kraemer.
"The negative rating actions are likely to continue to outnumber positive actions over the coming 12 months. The dominance of downgrades is likely to accelerate this year compared to last," the Press Trust of India quoted Kraemer, as saying in a report.
Kraemer said that the number of negative outlooks have exceeded positives since early 2008.
However, the improvement in the outlook balance that had started in 2013 witnessed a reversal in the second half of 2015, he said.
Except Asia-Pacific, the outlook balance has dropped in all global regions over the past 12 months. Asia-Pacific continues to witness a "rare" positive balance of (+)1.
The decline in balance was "most pronounced" in West Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Africa. The negative balance in the region got doubled to (-)12, posting an all-time low.
