Moody's and Standard & Poor's on Tuesday expressed concern about Jordan's economy and political turmoil, revising the outlook on its foreign and local currency to negative from stable. Moody's lowered the outlook on Jordan's "Ba2" foreign currency government bond rating to negative from stable because of political turmoil in the Arab world.
It said it has also "downgraded the government's local currency bond rating to Ba2 with a negative outlook from Baa3," and Jordan's local currency ceilings were downgraded to Baa1 from A3. It warned that it may downgrade Jordan's Ba2 government ratings "if there were disruptive political turmoil that threatened a structural weakening of Jordan's credit fundamentals relative to rating peers." Standard & Poor's said " if the new government is able to address public grievances in a manner supportive of public finances and external investor confidence, then we believe the ratings could stabilise at the current levels."