By the Caribbean Journal staff
Trinidad Finance Minister Winston Dookeran said the country’s economy remains stable, despite Standard & Poor’s decision to lower the country’s long-term local currency sovereign credit rating.
The new development, he said, was part of a new methodology on the part of the rating firm, which still gave the country an A grade.
“Under the revised methodology, the gap between the local- and foreign-currency ratings on most sovereigns we rate worldwide is narrowing,” S&P said in a release.
“This is because we believe that given the increasing globalization of markets, governments are likely to have fewer incentives to differentiate between their local- and foreign-currency debt in the event of debt restructuring.”
Standard and Poor’s also said said it expected Trinidad to keep its fiscal and external debt burdens steady, given what it called the government’s “cautious macroeconomic policies.”