Western financial press and ratings agencies continue to hit India’s Adani Group of companies and the Indian economy as hard as they can. The economic prospects for the biggest BRICS economies—China and India—appear to be for an acceleration of GDP growth to the range of 5-6%, according to the IMF/World Bank, while the EU and U.K. economies are in decline and the U.S. economy stagnating. The Russian Central bank has assessed the 2022 shrinkage of the Russian economy under monster sanctions at -2.5% rather than the −4.5% it earlier forecast, and has raised its 2023 forecast to the possibility of 1% growth rather than the −2% of its earlier forecast. This depends in part on Russia’s goods trade with China and India continuing to expand in 2023 and on assistance with capital investment from those nations.
Thus the context for the continuing attacks on the Adani Group, which is a leading infrastructure investor, power generator and power grid operator in India’s economy. On Feb. 13 Bloomberg News reported and Reuters headlined ("Adani slashes growth targets amid rout…") that Adani Group “planned to scale down capital spending.” An Adani Enterprises spokesman denied the report. Moody’s Investors’ Service downgraded Adani companies’ outlook from “stable” to “negative,” as Fitch Ratings had already done on Feb. 9. Another Reuters wire, “Adani tries to calm investors as regulator confirms probe,” speculated hard that “The Adani crisis has sparked worries of financial contagion in India, … and cast a shadow on the group’s capital raising plans.”
