Bahrain Mirror- Reuters: S&P Global Ratings on Friday lowered Bahrain's long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Bahrain to ‘B+' from ‘BB-'.
S&P said the downgrade reflected Bahrain's weak external liquidity and increasing financial risk due to more limited access to international capital market financing.
S&P said its outlook on Bahrain was stable, reflecting an expectation of financial support from neighboring sovereigns, despite the risk of the central bank not meeting a surge in foreign currency demand or tempering the effects of a worsening of investor sentiment, S&P said.
In November, Fitch Ratings revised Bahrain's outlook to ‘negative' from ‘stable'.
The government has yet to identify a clear medium-term strategy to combat high deficits and rising government debt ratio, Fitch said last month.