LONDON (Standard&Poor's) March 29, 2006--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today it launched its national credit rating scale for South Africa. This is a new initiative to support the growth and transparency of the bond market in South Africa, and is designed to appeal to a wide range of South African companies and institutions, as it enables Standard&Poor's to offer a finer distinction in the credit quality of local debt issuers than is allowed by its global scale. At the same time, 'zaAAA' long-term and 'zaA-1' short-term national scale ratings were assigned to the Republic of South Africa (see associated media release "South Africa Euro-Denominated Bond Rated 'BBB+'; Sovereign Rated 'zaAAA' On New National Scale," published
