LONDON (Standard&Poor's) Nov. 24, 2008--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today said it had lowered its long-term foreign currency rating on the Republic of Iceland to 'BBB-' from 'BBB' due to the sovereign's mounting public sector debt burden. The Transfer&Convertibility assessment on Iceland was also lowered to 'BBB-' from 'A-' in response to controls on the capital account and some current account transactions, which have been in place since early October. At the same time, Standard&Poor's affirmed its 'BBB+/A-2' local currency ratings, and its 'A-3' short-term foreign currency sovereign credit ratings. The outlook is negative. "The downgrade reflects Iceland's substantially higher debt burden compared with our projections when we last lowered the ratings on Iceland
