Economic support for Japan's sovereign creditworthiness has continued to weaken in the past three to four years. Despite showing initial promise, the government's strategy to revive economic growth and end deflation appears unlikely to reverse this deterioration in the next two to three years. We are lowering our sovereign credit ratings on Japan to 'A+/A-1' from 'AA-/A-1+'. The outlook on the long-term rating is stable. On Sept. 16, 2015, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services lowered its long-term foreign and local currency unsolicited sovereign credit ratings on Japan to 'A+' from 'AA-'. The outlook is stable. We also lowered the short-term foreign and local currency unsolicited sovereign credit ratings to 'A-1' from 'A-1+'. We revised our transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment
