LONDON (Standard&Poor's) Jan. 12, 2009--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today said it had placed its 'AAA' long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Spain on CreditWatch with negative implications. A CreditWatch listing signals a potential but not inevitable change in a rating over the short term. The 'A-1+' short-term ratings were affirmed. "The CreditWatch placement reflects our view of the significant challenges facing the Spanish economy as it traverses a period of very weak growth, and a sustained period of deleveraging, which we expect to lead to a rebalancing toward traded sectors requiring real exchange rate depreciation," Standard&Poor's credit analyst Trevor Cullinan said. "The likely result of such factors will be
