Moody's Investors Service (MIS), an American credit rating agency, on March 27 cut India's economic growth forecast for 2020 to 2.5 percent from previously estimated 5.3 percent amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The governments of India (Baa2 negative) and South Africa (Baa3 negative) have announced 21-day lockdowns. We expect these measures to dampen economic growth in both countries this year. For India, we are now projecting growth rates of 2.5 percent in 2020 followed by 5.8 percent next year," the MIS said in its Global Macro Outlook.

India earlier this week imposed a 21-day-long nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID pandemic that has killed at least 17 people in the country so far. India has recorded a total of 724 cases.

The Indian government had earlier projected GDP growth at 5 percent in 2019-20 as compared to 6.1 percent in 2018-19. The Q3 had witnessed a 4.7 percent growth.

India's federal Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a relief package of 22.6 billion U.S. dollars for the poor through cash transfer and food subsidy amid lockdown in the wake of COVID-19.

Source: Xinhua