{"id":8803,"date":"2015-05-02T04:25:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T08:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=8803"},"modified":"2015-05-02T10:08:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T14:08:07","slug":"tt-suffers-big-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=8803","title":{"rendered":"T&T suffers big blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Asha Javeed
\nMay 02, 2015 – trinidadexpress.com<\/A><\/I><\/p>\n

\"Down\"Trinidad and Tobago has suffered a big blow to its status as the place to invest in the Caribbean after international agency Moody\u2019s downgraded the country\u2019s credit rating from stable to negative.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s on Thursday downgraded Trinidad and Tobago\u2019s Government bond rating and issuer rating to from Baa1 to Baa2.<\/p>\n

The ratings are used and considered by international investors looking to do business in T&T.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s justification for the downgrade, which happened on Thursday, are:
\n
\n1. Persistent fiscal deficits and challenging prospects for fiscal reforms.<\/p>\n

2. Decline in oil prices and limited economic diversification to weigh negatively on economic growth prospects.<\/p>\n

3. Weak macroeconomic policy framework given lack of a medium-term fiscal strategy; and inadequate provision of vital macroeconomic data.<\/p>\n

As a consequence of that action, Moody\u2019s also downgraded two State energy companies\u2014the National Gas Company\u2019s (NGC) and the Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (Petrotrin)\u2014because of the high dependency on the companies by the Government.<\/p>\n

In explaining why it chose to downgrade T&T, Moody\u2019s said several factors contributed to this:
\nFull Article : trinidadexpress.com<\/A><\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

Negative rating: Moody\u2019s unhappy with T&T\u2019s fiscal measures<\/A><\/BIG>
\nCiting persistent fiscal deficits, the decline in oil prices and a weak macroeconomic policy framework among other concerns, Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded T&T’s government bond rating and issuer rating to Baa2 from Baa1 and changed the outlook for the country from stable to negative.<\/p>\n

Rowley: Result of wild spending<\/A><\/BIG>
\nOpposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says the People\u2019s Partnership Government should accept \u201cpersonal and direct\u201d blame for the Moody\u2019s downgrade of this country. \u201cThis Government has run a deficit in every single budget, spending far more than we were earning and there was no plan to change that, (only) old talk,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Rowley: A day of shame for T&T<\/A><\/BIG>
\n\u201cToday is a day of shame…This is not a good thing for Trinidad and Tobago and it was entirely avoidable,\u201d Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley has said in response to Moody\u2019s downgrade. The downgrade of Trinidad and Tobago\u2019s credit rating by Moody\u2019s flies in the face of everything this Government has been saying in praise of its own stewardship, he noted.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s reflects \u2018failure to diversify\u2019<\/A><\/BIG>
\nECONOMIC analyst Indera Sagewan-Ali yesterday said the decision by international ratings \u00adagency Moody\u2019s to lower this country\u2019s credit rating \u00adreflected the prolonged lament of economic watchdogs about the failure of successive governments to \u00addiversify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Asha Javeed May 02, 2015 – trinidadexpress.com Trinidad and Tobago has suffered a big blow to its status as the place to invest in the Caribbean after international agency Moody\u2019s downgraded the country\u2019s credit rating from stable to negative. Moody\u2019s on Thursday downgraded Trinidad and Tobago\u2019s Government bond rating and issuer rating to from … Continue reading T&T suffers big blow<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1,178,396,7],"tags":[993,1015,49],"class_list":["post-8803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","category-general-tt","category-media","category-peoples-partnership","category-politics","tag-moodys","tag-politics","tag-tt-govt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8803"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8810,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions\/8810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}