China's Dagong Links 2008 Financial Crisis to Western Agencies

The agency held a press conference to announce the release of its report on the crisis, dubbed "A Study of the Western Ideas About Credit Rating."

BEIJING, June 25 (Sputnik) – Western principles in assigning ideologically-driven credit ratings were the root cause of the 2008 global financial crisis, China's Dagong Global Credit Rating Group said Thursday.

The 68-page study analyzes 104 Western rating methods across 70 sectors and nearly 2,400 rating indicators and opinions published by the three biggest rating agencies.

Its author, and the chairman of Dagong, argues that the failure on the part of Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch to "indicate the essence of rating" results in Western ratings losing their value.

"Practices have proven the errors in the Western credit rating ideas and the global credit crisis has presented solid evidence," Guan Jianzhong was quoted as saying at the conference.

Guan called for further study of Western credit rating principles to prevent "another world-sweeping credit squeeze."

The three dominant rating agencies have often faced criticism for allowing their ratings to be tinged by geopolitics, which has led a number of non-Western institutions and officials to call for the establishment of independent agencies.