LONDON (Standard&Poor's CreditWire) March 21, 2001--Standard&Poor's today affirmed its ratings on the Republic of Iceland, including its single-'A'-plus long-term foreign currency ratings, and revised the outlook on the long-term foreign currency issuer rating to stable from positive. (See list below.) The outlook revision reflects growing external imbalances, which have led to a rapid increase in the level of external indebtedness to 265% of exports in 2000. The current account deficit reached 10% of GDP last year and this has been compounded by net foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows of 2% of GDP and negative portfolio flows caused by international diversification of Icelandic private pension funds. Standard&Poor's expects the economy's growth rate to slow to
