Indicating good corporate profile and continuing phases of recovery, credit rating agency ICRA on Tuesday said there were substantial decline in downgrades and robust increase in upgrades, notably in the automobile sector during 2003.

"There were 14 downgrades in 2003 as compared to 31 in 2002 and upgrades increased to 11 from eight," ICRA said in its report, 'Rating transition update for 2003'.

Among the 11 entities whose debt rating were upgrades in 2003, four were in the auto-auto ancillary sector, while the rest were in diverse sectors like refinery, housing finance, bank, media, sugar and steel, it said.

Of the 14 downgraded entities, two were from financial services, two from tractor industry and the rest from sectors like glass, electronics, plastics, housing finance, fertiliser and hotels.

Of the 14 downgrades, five were from non-investment grade to a lower one, while three were from an investment grade to non-investment and the rest of the movements were within the investment grade categories, it added.

"The pattern of rating revision shows that not only has there been a decline in the overall number of downgrades in 2002 and 2003, but the proportion of downgrades of investment grade rating to non-investment grade has also declined," ICRA said.

The inverse-CR -- ratio between downgrades and upgrades -- stood at 1.27 in 2003 as compared to as high as 3.88 in the previous year, showing the higher degree of stability of the rating exercise, it said.