Outlook 'stable' for sovereign rating of Thailand, Asia

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Outlook 'stable' for sovereign rating of Thailand, Asia
Erich Parpart
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Thailand and Asia's sovereign rating outlook remains stable over the next one to two years and the region more than ever has become investment-grade, said Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.

That was the result of an increase in investment-grade ratings in the region, S&P said.

TRIS Rating, meanwhile, said the current economic recovery would stabilise Thailand's rating but there were weaknesses which needed to be addressed to ensure this outlook remained stable in order to support its eventual increase in the future.

Speaking at a seminar arranged by TRIS Rating, Kim Eng Tan, senior director and head of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at S&P, said a significant improvement in countries' ratings in the region was down to two factors.

He said ratings in large economies - China, India and Indonesia - had increased and were higher than in 2007 and these economies had been growing rapidly over the past 10 years or so.

"Simply by growing faster, China, and maybe Indonesia, have helped lift the average rating of this region and the current average rating in Asia has now come up to A+, which is a pretty high average rating for a region which is largely still deemed an emerging-market region," he said.

Tan said Thailand's sovereign rating had remained stable at BBB+ since 2004 while Indonesia and the Philippines's ratings had increased to BB+ and BBB respectively in the past 10 years as a result of subsided political stability since 2000.

He said this had helped stabilised economic policies and reduce government debt in both countries.

Singapore still had the highest rating in the region at AAA and Malaysia's rating was still A- while Vietnam's rating dropped to BB- in 2010 because of economic instability and volatility through high inflation and fast-rising interest rates.

As for Thailand, he said it was difficult to judge how much the political uncertainty since 2006 had impacted on the economy but what was more important was what lied ahead including the level of investment in the country.

"Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Thailand has regained quite a lot of investment to the extent that its average trending is just below 30 per cent over much of the past five to 10 years," he said.

"And all up, Thailand has had a good post-crisis period. But more important is whether this positive investment rate is going to continue despite the increase of political uncertainties in the past few years."

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Outlook-stable-for-sovereign-rating-of-Thailand-As-30243109.html

-- The Nation 2014-09-12

[Strangebrew]

according to Bloomberg few hour ago APEC officer Wang said that there meeting in China to set guidelines on the corruption issues in Asian countries They were talking about adopting UN standard and monitor countries for progress. So just saying maybe Standard and poor's rating don't mean a thing. About much weight as Huffington post report.