Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services today raised its long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the People’s Republic of China to ‘AA-’ from ‘A+’. The outlook on the long-term ratings is stable. At the same time, Standard & Poor’s affirmed its short-term ratings at ‘A-1+’ and revised its transfer and convertibility assessment on China to ‘AA-’ from ‘A+’.
- A positive revision in Standard & Poor’s assessment of the risks to China’s macroeconomic and financial stability supports the upgrade.
- We raised our long-term sovereign credit ratings on the People’s Republic of China to ‘AA-’ from ‘A+’ and affirmed our short-term rating of ‘A-1+’.
- The stable outlook reflects our view of China’s strong capacity to absorb potential balance sheet losses, given its substantial foreign reserves
and strong fiscal position.
As a result S&P upgraded the credit ratings of eight China-based and five Hong Kong-based companies, including BNP Paribas (China) Ltd., China Life Insurance Co. Ltd., China Mobile Ltd., China National Offshore Oil Corp., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., CNOOC Finance Corp. Ltd., CNOOC Ltd., and Hang Seng Bank (China) Limited.
