| Abstract: | Asia-Pacific sovereign credit ratings have bucked the global trend so far in 2011. Globally, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services has lowered more ratings than it has raised for much of 2011. In Asia-Pacific, however, the ratio of foreign currency sovereign upgrades to downgrades is 2:1. Earlier this year, we upgraded Indonesia and Fiji, and downgraded Japan (see table 1). In July-August, we lowered the local currency sovereign ratings on Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam. But these downgrades were due to a change in our sovereign rating criteria rather than a reassessment of our credit views of the affected sovereigns. (See "Sovereign Government Rating Methodology and Assumptions," published June 30, 2011, on RatingsDirect on the Global Credit Portal.) This positive
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