TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Indonesia wins Moody's upgrade months after Fitch move
Indonesia won a sovereign rating upgrade with Moody’s Investors Service raising its assessment to the second-lowest investment grade.
Change Size
Indonesia wins a sovereign rating upgrade with Moody’s Investors Service raising its assessment to the second-lowest investment grade. (Bloomberg/File photo)
I
ndonesia won a sovereign rating upgrade with Moody’s Investors Service raising its assessment to the second-lowest investment grade, months after Fitch Rating lifted its own score.
The rating on the nation’s long-term, foreign currency-denominated debt was raised one level to Baa2 with a stable outlook, Moody’s said in a statement on Friday. The upgrade puts Indonesia on par with the Philippines and India.
Indonesia’s prudent fiscal and monetary policy and the build-up of financial buffers strengthen Moody’s confidence that its resilience and capacity to respond to shocks has improved, it said. The upgrade would boost President Joko Widodo’s efforts to finance hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure to fire up the economy.
"This is a near-term positive for markets and a strong validation to Indonesia’s improving fundamentals, putting it in a good position to weather recent external storms," said Euben Paracuelles, an economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore.
Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has been growing at about 5 percent and is expected to pick up pace this year, but is still well short of the 7 percent targeted by Widodo, known as Jokowi.
