NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) April 4, 2003--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it revised its outlook on the Republic of Costa Rica's 'BB+' long-term local and 'BB' long-term foreign currency sovereign credit ratings to negative from stable. The negative outlook reflects Costa Rica's heightened vulnerabilities, which result from fiscal slippage and the increased exposure of the banking system to currency risk (in the context of the country's poor external liquidity). "Weak external liquidity and the recent rapid growth in domestic credit, much of it in foreign currency, increase the risk inherent in the central bank's crawling peg exchange-rate regime," said sovereign analyst Richard Francis. "A change of regime under stress would heighten the risk of banking sector
