Country credit rating is an assessment of the credit worthiness of the country itself. It’s a published ranking where the financial analysis is based on the financial history of borrowing and repayment. The highest rating is usually AAA, and the lowest is D. Most of the time, lenders will use this information to decide whether to approve a loan.
In this table you can see the credit ratings of some Asean and European countries. The credit ratings are the most recent ratings from Standard & Poor’s. From the table shown, we know that Greece currently has the lowest credit rating in the world. In the other words, it’s the world’s worst credit-worthy country. Besides that, several other developed economies such Italy and Spain also join in credit rating cut due to the Eurozone debt default.
The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s had also downgraded the outlook on Japan debt from “stable” to “negative” due to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. From what we can see that Standard & Poor’s cut Japan’s credit rating for the first time in 9 years with the credit rating was downgraded from AA to AA-, due to it’s facing a debt of 900++ trillion yen which is equivalent to $11 trillion. In short, it has exceeded more than double of their annual economic output.
Currently, Malaysia has a credit rating of A-, which indicates that Malaysia still a stable country and is likely to repay any loans it takes out. But, we also need to take some precaution steps as more countries around the globe confront increasingly serious financial debt crisis, the need to come up with a serious plan to take control of our debt and deficit will become more apparent. So, our government has to manage to come out a plan to fix our future budget, before it’s too late.
