Moody's upgraded Indonesia rating to Ba1

BI/bursa

17/1/2011

Irvin Avriano A.

Bisnis Indonesia

Moody's upgraded Indonesia rating to Ba1

JAKARTA: Moody's Investors Service upgraded the rating for Indonesia's sovereign bond and credit rating from Ba2 level to Ba1 level, a very single notch under investment grade. The nation's rating outlook set at stable level.

The other global credit rating company set Indonesia level at BB+ from Fitch Ratings and BB from Standard&Poor's (S&P). Fitch's rating upgraded from BB to BB+ since January last year, while rating from S&P upgraded since last March.

The upgrading action following positive outlook that has been given last December. Aninda Mitra, Moody's VP and lead of sovereign analyst for Indonesia, said there are three factor that support those rating.

Those factors are economic resilience that accompanied by sustained balanced macroenomic, the improvement of government's debt position and the central bank's foreign currency reserve adequacy, and also improvement and prospectives for foreign direct investment inflows which expected to fortify Indonesia's external position and economic outlook.

The upgraded sovereign rating also followed by upgraded five sovereign owned enterprise (SOE/BUMN) from Ba2 level to Ba1 level. The SOE are namely PT Perusahaan Gas Negara Tbk (PGN), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom), PT Telkomsel, PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), and PT Semen Gresik Tbk.

The rating action also followed by upgraded rating for sovereign credit rating for 10 banks to Ba2 from Ba3 level. The banks are PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BCA), PT Bank CIMB Niaga Tbk, PT Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk, PT Bank Internasional Indonesia Tbk (BII), and PT Bank Mandiri Tbk.

Next are PT Bank Negara Indonesia Tbk (BNI), PT Bank Permata Tbk, PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk (BRI), PT Bank Tabungan Negara Tbk (BTN), and PT Pan Indonesia Bank Tbk (Panin).