Fitch Ratings says the Occupy Central movement that spilled over from the weekend does not significantly affect Hong Kong’s ratings.
“The events of the past 24 hours don’t significantly affect Hong Kong’s ratings. Fitch was aware of the planned Occupy protests when we affirmed Hong Kong at ‘AA-plus’ with stable outlook on September 15. We don’t expect the protests to have a rating impact in the short term,” Fitch said in a statement on Monday.
“It would be negative if the protests are on a wide enough scale and last long enough to have a material effect on the economy or financial stability, but we don’t currently see this as very likely.”
Hong Kong retains a number of credit strengths supporting its very high rating, including the strength of the government’s balance sheet, supply-side economic flexibility and high standards of governance underpinned by high-quality public institutions.
“There are two potentially relevant questions from a credit perspective, but these will likely play out only over the longer term. One is whether the [city] can resolve its political issues so that we have a government that commands basic popular consent to implement economic and structural policies … The second is whether the political stand-off eventually [affects] domestic and foreign perceptions of Hong Kong’s stability and attractiveness as an investment destination,” Fitch said.