Russian Capital Market Unlikely to Change After Moody’s Downgrade – FinMin

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov commented on Moody's recent decision to lower the country's sovereign debt rating to Ba1, saying that it would not have any additional major impact on the capital market.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has stressed that Moody's downgrade of Russia's sovereign debt rating from Baa3 to Ba1 is unlikely to cause any significant changes on the capital market.

"We believe that the agency's decision will not have any additional major impact on the capital market," Siluanov told reporters, explaining that the issuer's foreign currency rating is perceived as less significant by the participants of the domestic debt market.

Siluanov added that the Russian Finance Ministry will maintain "open dialogue" with Moody's as well as other rating agencies in order to provide them with up-to-date macroeconomic data with the aim of raising Russia's ratings in the long-term perspective.

Moody's Downgrade of Russia's Sovereign Rating Lacks Real Basis

The Russian Finance Ministry has announced that Moody's decision to lower the country's sovereign debt rating to Ba1 was based on an excessively pessimistic forecast that does not reflect the real market situation.

"The Finance Ministry considers the reasons for the decision to lower the sovereign rating of the Russian Federation unrealistic. The presented forecast, which formed the basis of the [Moody's] agency's conclusions significantly surpasses, in the degree of pessimism, all existing ratings of international financial organizations and the world's leading investment banks," the ministry stressed.

Moody's downgraded Russia's sovereign debt rating from Baa3 to Ba1 with a negative outlook late Friday, citing the situation in Ukraine and slumping oil prices as some of the reasons behind the downgrade.

"These ratings are incomparable with the economic forecasts of the IMF [International Monetary Fund], the World Bank and international banks," the Russian Finance Ministry stressed, adding that Moody's decision does not take into account an array of "objective factors" pertaining to the strong sides of the Russian economy.

According to the ministry, Russia has successfully demonstrated resilience to "external shocks" such as sharp oil price falls and the situation on its foreign exchange and financial markets is generally stabilizing.

The Russian budget relies largely on oil revenues, which slumped in the second half of 2014 due to global overproduction. The ruble has lost about half of its value against the dollar since last summer.

In January, the Russian government presented an anti-crisis plan set to stabilize the country's economy. The plan stipulates deep spending cuts and aims to balance the country's budget by 2017.

The world's three largest rating agencies, Standard & Poor's (S&P), Fitch, and Moody's, have recently downgraded Russia's credit ratings.

Moody's downgraded Russia's sovereign debt rating late on February, 20. Its previous downgrade of Russia's credit rating took place back in October, 2014.

S&P downgraded Russia's sovereign rating from BBB- to a "junk" BB+, a status indicating a probable default, on January 26. Fitch downgraded Russia's sovereign debt rating to a BBB- on January 9.

Meanwhile the Chinese Dagong Global credit rating decided to maintain Russia's A/A local and foreign currency sovereign credit ratings with a stable outlook earlier this month.

Many experts have argued that the so-called "big three" have made biased judgments in their ratings of Russia, basing them on the geopolitical situation.